Running off the Edge of the Earth
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: Completed! Izzie's dealing with her grief in the best way that she can, trying to put all the pieces together and make a happy ending for herself despite her loss. Postfinale, picks up a week after Denny's death. Some IzzieAlex, Burtina. Rated T for safet
1. Save Tonight

**A/N:** Okay, so this is my first attempt at a chaptered GA fic. You're about to find out the reason 99 of what I write is oneshot fics. I have a problem with not being able to keep an interesting storyline going to save my life. Anyway, with that, all reviews and criticism are welcomed with open arms. Skewer and flame-grill it if you like, just let me know!

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**Chapter 1: Save Tonight**

Gone. It was that fast. In the time it takes a girl to try on three different dresses, a man could up and die. Just like that. One day, here. The next day, the next hour, the next minute… they're gone. Obliterated. Wiped off the face of existence. Released.

Izzie tried to think of it that way. Denny wasn't taken, he was released. Released from his pain, released from his suffering and his restlessness and his bitterness. Released from the life he had lived in that hospital, awaiting his heart. It was so hard to think of it that way, though, knowing that he had his new heart, that he was going to recover, that he was supposed to walk out of that hospital door with Izzie on his arm and they were going to live together, and eat together, and sleep together. He would be able to walk and run and hike and get the paper and make scrambled eggs and take out the trash like any normal human being.

Instead, he was released. Gone. And there was an emptiness inside of her that was gnawing, raw, sharp and dull at the same time. The constant pain never abated, never ebbed away as if controlled by the gravitational pull of the moon as was the tide. It was ever-present; a huge emptiness in which unrelenting grief had nestled itself deep within her, the name 'Denny' echoing through the cavernous space constantly. All the light, all the hope inside of her had been extinguished, and she was left with only a shell of Izzie, only an empty place where joy used to dance in her eyes and laughter bubbled up in each smile.

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He had died only a week ago, but it seemed like a year. Every excruciating hour crawled by painstakingly slowly, as if the entirety of Meredith's house was in a time-warp zone, where everything was ten times as slow as it should be. The funeral was that afternoon at 2:00, but Izzie could not bring herself to rise out of bed, even at ten 'til noon. Instead she lay on her bed, scantily clad in a tank top and a pair of unnaturally bright lime green and magenta Hello Kitty panties, curled into a ball with her back pressed against the headboard. Her blankets were kicked to the floor, and despite the cool wind from the fan blowing on her bare skin, she did not shiver. She didn't seem to feel anything, see anything, hear anything. She was personification of emptiness.

"Izzie?" a soft female voice inquired from the other side of the door, knocking softly. No response. Her dark brown eyes did not even flicker towards the door, they just remained fixed on absolutely nothing. Vacant.

"Izzie, you should probably start getting ready," Meredith persisted, speaking lightly, as if they were going to a lunch date instead of a funeral. Instead of her fiancé's funeral. The mourning ceremony and burial of the man she loved. You can't help who you fall in love with. Finally, after another fifteen seconds of no response, Meredith cracked the door open and one blue eye peered in on the morose scene.

In the past week, Izzie had moved from the bed maybe two or three times a day to use the bathroom, and on a good day she would venture down into the kitchen to look into the pantry, then make a sick face and walk back up the stairs. George and Meredith had been bringing food to her bedroom, leaving it on a tray on the dresser just inside of her room, talking only to her back as she lay facing the opposite direction on her bed. Now, though, she was pressed against the headboard, facing the bedroom door, so Meredith had a clear image of her lightless face.

"You look pale," Meredith said, regretting the tactless comment almost immediately. It was true, though; she had a very pale, pasty look to her, as if she were ill. In a way she was, though. Emotionally, anyway. Emotionally she was very sick. Dying, even. Mortally ill.

Despite the remark, there was no sign on Izzie's face that she had even heard or processed the words. She just continued to stare, blinking occasionally, ribcage rising and falling slowly with her breathing. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her pillow, head lying unsupported on the mattress.

"Izzie? Come on, it's time to get up and get ready," Meredith said again, walking over to her bed and sitting on the very far corner. She didn't want to intrude on Izzie's space, but it had been a week, and without some kind of human contact she feared for the girl's sanity. Well, she already feared for her sanity, but with enough time completely alone to stew on her overwhelming grief, it might be even worse for her than people pushing their company upon her.

Finally, Izzie acknowledged Meredith's presence. Her eyes shut momentarily, then lazily looked up to focus on the petite woman sitting on the edge of her bed. She made what might've been a vague attempt at a smile, but only came out as a slight facial twitch before she returned back to the expressionless look she'd had before. It seemed Meredith was smart enough to not ask how she was feeling, since it was quite apparent exactly how she was feeling. Rather, she strode across the room lithely, opening the closet and pushing through Izzie's clothes, trying to find something nice for her to wear. She settled on a cute but appropriate black dress, with a slightly-oversized black knit sweater for modesty purposes.

"Come on Izzie, it's time to get dressed for the…" Meredith trailed off, unable to bring herself to say the word 'funeral'. The word stuck to her tongue, clinging to her mouth, incapable of wrenching its way out. So there it stayed, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

Instead of a verbal response, Izzie gently pushed off of the mattress and righted herself, leaning her head back against the headboard and drawing her knees to her chest, setting the pillow to her side. It looked permanently squashed in the center, as if she'd had a vice grip on it all week.

"There you go, come on now," Meredith encouraged, bringing the clothes over to where Izzie sat and laying them on the bed next to her. "I'm going down into the living room with George, Alex should be here soon, and Cristina and Burke. We'll be waiting," she said, giving Izzie a sad smile before departing down the stairs as promised, shutting the door quietly behind her. Izzie was alone again.

Every movement she made was robotic; stiff, as if after a week of dormancy and not really showering her body was unused to the natural movements of daily life. She planted both feet firmly on the ground and rose, her head swimming. She stabilized herself against the bedside table, fingers grazing against a tube of chapstick on the table. Since Denny's death, she probably applied it ten to fifteen times daily. Denny had a thing for putting Vaseline on his lips all the time when he was in the hospital – he was prone to getting chapped lips. Just like he was prone to getting blood clots.

With that thought, Izzie shut her eyes, trying to block out all cognitive thinking. She blindly stumbled across the hall and into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her and fumbling to find the shower knob. Before long, she stripped down and stepped into the downpour of scalding water, letting it burn. She hadn't stepped foot into the shower since his death, and probably still had traces of make-up from the night of his death on her face. Everything from that night still clung to her.

She had worked a thick white lather into her hair before she opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. The rosy tiles of the shower, the curtain pulled, the pristine white porcelain at her feet. Lather, rinse, condition. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Rinse. More soap. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Rinse. Get clean. Wash it all away. Cleanse. Repeat.

She'd been in the shower for the better of half an hour before she finally pushed in the knob, ending the flow of water. She squeezed water out of her hair half-heartedly and wrapped herself in a towel, wiping the heel of her palm across the mirror to clear the fog and look at herself properly. She looked a fair deal cleaner, but sadly soap only cleansed as far as the skin went. Her eyes were still dull and without their typical Izzie spark, and despite her vain attempts to smile at her reflection, nothing came. There was nothing to smile about today.

An hour later, after much sitting around and twirling wet locks of curly blonde hair idly around her finger, she was finally dressed. It was probably time to go now, if they were going to arrive on time. Maybe with any luck they'd run off the road and never get there, and have one big happy funeral for everyone.

_Ah, now that's a bit too morbid,_ Izzie thought to herself, forcing a smirk that only lasted a moment. She thought about doing something with her hair but banished the notion instantly, leaving it down and only half-dry, slapping against her shoulders as she traipsed down the stairs, arriving to a living room full of ogling eyes when she reached the bottom.


	2. Don't Wanna Miss a Thing

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews! I'm putting up Chapters 2 and 3 now, so please let me know what you think of them! I always tend to have a hard time keeping a plot line going, so the more input you give me, the better off I am for it. Compliment, skewer, I don't care, just let me know!

**Disclaimer:** No ownership here, whatsoever.

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**Chapter 2: I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing**

Without make-up, wet tendrils of hair clinging to the side of her face, Izzie looked less like Bethany Whisper than she ever had. She looked tired, was what she looked like. Worn out, completely.

She managed a nod of recognition to the room full of spectators – Meredith, George, Callie, Alex, Cristina, and Burke – as she entered, taking a seat on the far end of the couch. The room was tense and abnormally quiet, but she wasn't about to break the silence. She felt relieved not to be spoken to, to be asked to talk. It held no appeal to her.

"So, uh, shall we go then?" Burke finally asked at twenty 'til two. Meredith nodded and everyone stood, Izzie rising last of all of them. They filed out of the room in a gloomy, silent procession – Burke and Cristina, George and Callie, Meredith, Alex, and Izzie – and loaded into their respective cars. The cemetery where Denny was being buried wasn't far from the hospital, a small plot of land on a rolling green hill, fenced off and dotted sparsely with pine trees.

George and Callie had taken Callie's car, and Burke and Cristina rode together, so it was Meredith driving her car with Alex and Izzie in tow. Izzie sat in the front passenger's seat, Alex having offered to take the minimal leg room in the back for himself. He was really quite the gentleman, when it came right down to it. He could be, anyway, if he set his mind to it. Izzie pressed her temple against the cool glass and stared blankly out the window, watching the passers-by and wondering how many of them had lost somebody they truly loved. Wondering if their grief was powerful enough to turn the world upside down, as Izzie's felt to her.

After the painfully silent car ride, everyone came to the destination. They marched in a small group down a cobbled path that cut through the entire cemetery, leading to the various gravestones that dotted the land. One hole was freshly dug, dirt still piled near it, and a coffin was suspended in the air just above the deep rectangular opening in the earth. Denny's coffin.

The air around the site was thin and chill, making Izzie wish she had more than the light sweater Meredith had pulled out for her to go with her dress. There was an eerie silence around the place that had nothing to do with the lack of verbalization – even the birds seemed to stop singing in the cemetery. The wind did not whistle and the trees did not sway noisily through the breeze as they did elsewhere. All was quiet. All was still. The very earth and sky mourned for Denny.

The small group made a semi-circle around the fresh grave, heads bowed in mourning. Izzie stood between George and Meredith, swaying slightly as if she were having a hard time staying on her feet. Meredith touched a hand to her elbow to steady her, and she neither recoiled nor seemed to accept the warm gesture. She was just there. There, and not there at the same time.

A short balding priest spoke a collection of kind words about Denny at the ceremony, all of which were true but very vague and could have applied to just about anyone you could think of who happened to be dead. Izzie, for the first time, actually had an expression on her face – it was grim and twisted with dark distaste. How could they be so generic, when Denny was so unique and unbelievably special? Did he not deserve words spun straight from the heart that loved him more than anything? Would he be remembered as one of a million nice guys who passed before their time?

"Does anyone have any words to say before we come to a close?" the man asked, eyes sweeping the quiet group of surgeons (and ex-surgeons) through small, narrow-set spectacles. Izzie raised her head up.

"Yes, actually," she said, voice cracking. Everyone looked up to her in shock, then attempted to mask it by rapidly returning to staring dutifully at their feet.

"I just want to say…" Izzie began, not sure what she really wanted to say. She looked at the coffin, silent for a moment, feeling the eyes of the others on her. Waiting. The coffin was nice, really. Made of a handsome light-colored wood, no doubt lined with a rich and expensive quality fabric. Silver handles at the sides, excellent craftsmanship. Really quite a nice coffin.

"I just wanted to say," she began again, sounding a little more confident in herself. A little more ready. "I wanted to say that life isn't fair. It's not fair that not everyone has a heart that will last them their lifetime, despite what they did or didn't do to keep healthy. It's not fair that good, honest, hard-working, kind, and intelligent people like Denny have organs that fail them, and are restricted to a hospital bed while they pray that another heart comes their way. It's not fair that we fall in love with the people we're not supposed to –" her voice broke for a moment, but she regained composure and continued, "—and it's not fair that even with some of the best medical care in the world, and a perfectly healthy donor organ, that people like Denny die anyway. But nobody ever said life was fair," she said quietly, as if contemplating on the comment herself. "Nobody ever said that, because it's not. Life wasn't fair to Denny, but he was a great man anyway. He got dealt a bad hand but he didn't complain, didn't make everyone else suffer with him. He did the best with what he had, and he loved even with a heart that wasn't going to last him much longer. And I loved him… but love wasn't enough, and that's the most unfair thing of all."

With that, the priest nodded, tears magnified through his thick lenses. Izzie dropped her head again, eyes wet but refusing to fall apart. Fairly audible sniffles came from Meredith's direction, and Alex put an arm around her shoulder in a big-brotherly sort of way. George stared fixedly at the ground as they lowered Denny's coffin into the earth, and Burke was solemn and controlled, as would be expected. Even Cristina was touched by Izzie's speech, quickly wiping tears from her eyes when she thought no one was looking.

And that was it. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Everything coming around, the circle of life completed, and so on. They stayed only to watch a handful of dirt be thrown on top of the grave, then decided it was time to go. All but Izzie turned to leave, and Alex had taken a few paces before he realized that Izzie was still firmly rooted to the spot, staring at Denny's coffin as dirt was loaded onto it.

"Come on, Iz," he said gently, putting a hand on her shoulder and steering her away from the scene. She complied quietly, refusing to look at anybody as she made her way back to the car, vision blurred by a glaze of tears threatening to fall from her eyes at any given moment. She tried hard not to blink.

So it was. Denny was gone. Really gone. Buried and eulogized, gone. Into the earth and packed away, gone. Not coming back, gone. The kind of gone that sat in your stomach like a lead weight, and yet at the same time made you feel terribly hollow. So very, very gone.


	3. Lean on Me

**A/N:** A whole lot hasn't been happening here in the way of dialogue, but there's a bit more in this chapter. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Period.

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**Chapter 3: Lean on Me**

The sun was beginning to dip down into the horizon by the time Cristina and Burke had said their goodbyes and left. The sky was alight, glowing soft pink, husky blue and bright tangerine. A ridge of pines in the distance was in stark contrast to the blazing sky behind it, an image Meredith paused to soak in from the front door; a sight that Izzie barely acknowledged through her bedroom window, though. She hadn't really acknowledged anything, or anybody, since the end of the funeral. She sat silently in the car the ride back, then fled up the stairs directly upon arrival home, shutting herself into her room again. Nobody bothered her; she needed time, and space.

"She'll be okay, don't worry. She just needs time to grieve," Meredith assured George, who still looked concerned but nodded as he was gently tugged out the door by Callie. He was staying the night with her, leaving the house only to Izzie, Meredith, and Alex, who refused to go home and was camping out on the living room couch until further notice.

Empty but for the three of them, the house was unnervingly quiet. Alex sat on one end of the couch and Meredith the other, the two sitting in silence, enveloped in thought.

"You think she's hungry?" Meredith asked after a few minutes, obviously meaning Izzie. "She hasn't eaten all day."

"I dunno, are _you_ hungry after that?" Alex asked, raising his eyebrows. "I know I'm not."

"You've got a point," Meredith said, feeling a mildly sick burning sensation in her stomach that probably had nothing to do with hunger, and in either case did not beg to be fed. And so the time passed. Alex rummaged around and found the remote after another ten minutes or so, flicking through channels absent-mindedly and without any real interest. They never ended up watching anything; Alex just flipped channels for an hour, pausing on a few choice commercials or snippets of programs, and Meredith stared absently into space, still deep in thought. Finally, as the last bit of light disappeared beneath the horizon and the moon was a shining sliver in the sky, Meredith rose from the couch.

"Well, she needs to eat something, hungry or not. She'll starve up there," she said, heading towards the kitchen. In about ten minutes' time she came out of the kitchen with a plate stacked with turkey sandwiches in one hand, and a glass of juice in the other.

"Eat," she said, forcing a sandwich into Alex's hands. He didn't need telling twice; apparently the presence of a corpse could only kill his appetite for so long. She left him on the couch, taking the stairs step by step, slowly until she reached the top. She treaded lightly down the hall, incase Izzie was already asleep. She doubted it, though. As tired as she constantly looked, Meredith doubted that Izzie got much sleep at all lately.

She debated knocking on the door, then decided on just lightly tapping it with her knuckles before cracking it open and peering in to see if she was asleep or not. True to Meredith's instinct, Izzie was laying curled up in the dead center of her bed, stripped down to what Meredith recognized as one of George's Seahawks t-shirts and another outrageously bright pair of panties, hair thrown into a careless bun. And she was wide awake.

"Izzie, I brought food," Meredith said quietly, letting herself into the room and shutting the door softly behind her. Everything she did around Izzie was quiet, as if she were so extremely sensitive that even a loud noise could set her off.

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry," she replied in a monotone voice, closing her eyes slowly and tightening her grip on the pillow, which had found its way into her arms again.

"You need to eat," Meredith persisted, taking a seat gently on the edge of the bed and setting the plate on the bedside table.

"I don't want to," Izzie stubbornly replied, not meeting Meredith's gaze. There was something so terribly exhausted about Izzie's demeanor, as if a light within her had been extinguished; it was almost like part of her died with Denny, and it was terribly unnerving to be around.

"You've barely eaten anything all week. Please, just a sandwich?" Meredith pleaded, tucking her legs up to her chest and leaning against the headboard of Izzie's bed, making herself comfortable. She was not leaving until Izzie ate something. She wasn't going to let her starve up here like some ill-tempered cat that was shut away and everyone forgot to feed.

"I just… I can't," Izzie said, squeaking out the last word as tears began to roll down her cheeks. She finally made eye contact with Meredith, and it made Meredith's breath catch in her chest. She had never seen such an absolutely defeated-looking individual in her life. It was as if there was nothing left in Izzie Stevens anymore. She was small and fractured and empty.

"Oh, Iz," she said softly, opening her arms to the young woman on the other side of the bed. Izzie scooted up, leaning against Meredith and pressing her face into her shoulder, letting the tears come. Meredith rubbed her back, hugged her close to her, but said nothing. There was silence, except for Izzie's sobs and hitching gasps for air. No words really could be said at that moment. There was nothing Meredith could say, and that might make it worse, so she was just there. That's all she could do.

Finally, after probably a decent hour of bawling, Izzie simply ran out of tears. She still hiccupped and gasped for breath occasionally, and whimpered softly to herself, but she was so utterly dehydrated it seemed that her tear glands had just stopped producing any more tears to cry out. She allowed her head to slide down into Meredith's lap, curling up into the familiar ball with the pillow tucked into her arms as always. Meredith ran her fingers through Izzie's hair as she drifted into a fitful sleep, Meredith herself finding her eyelids to be growing heavier and heavier. The last thing she remembered was the sound of Alex bumping around in the linens closet, digging around for a pillow and blanket for the couch no doubt.

Then she was asleep, not having realized how drained she really was from the day, the sandwiches left untouched at the bedside.


	4. Set the Fire to the Third Bar

**A/N:** Thanks for reviewing! I'm actually further in this than I post, I just finished writing the 7th chapter, but I like to stagger it a little bit. I know it has a pretty somber tone now, but it really does lighten up more. It's supposed to be sad, but it's all about healing, so further along things begin to look brighter. And yes, each chapter is titled after a song that's fitted to the events of the chapter. I can't put the lyrics though, because then fanfic bans me and that's not fun. I really love this song though, it's by Snow Patrol, and it's fabulous.

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**Chapter 4: Set Fire to the Third Bar**

The next morning, Izzie awoke feeling as if a slight burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Her eyes were red and puffy still, and when she realized where she was, she looked up to see Meredith still sound asleep, head leaned against the headboard of the bed, one hand on Izzie's shoulder and the other hanging limp at her side. Izzie smiled, however briefly, and the feeling felt completely foreign to her. Could you forget to smile in the space of a week?

She lifted her head from Meredith's lap, and looked at her friend sleeping for a moment before shaking her shoulder gently and whispering into her ear.

"Mere, it's time to get up, you have to go to work today," she said quietly, rousing the young woman out of sleep. Meredith yawned, looking around as if trying to get her bearings. When the events of the previous night came into memory, she looked to Izzie and smiled weakly, then glanced towards the clock on the table beside the bed. 5:30 AM. She was half an hour late getting going already.

"Crap," she said, cracking her neck and jumping lightly out of the bed. "I do have to go to work, don't I?" Meredith asked, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

"Hmmm," was Izzie's only response as she turned on her back, hugging the pillow to her chest and pressing her chin into it, staring into the ceiling fan.

"Well, I guess er… I'm going to go do that then. I'll see you later?" Meredith said, heading towards the door.

"Yeah, I'll see you," Izzie said quietly, watching Meredith exit the room. "Wait, Mere?" she said suddenly, hearing Meredith's footsteps immediately stop and backpedal into Izzie's doorway, looking in at her.

"Yes?"

"Thanks, for everything. It's… it means a lot to me, to have someone like you there when I need you," Izzie said, stumbling on the words but finally getting them out in the end. Meredith smiled, shaking her head.

"Don't worry about it. You've done it for me a thousand times, I owe you," she said, scooting into the room and giving Izzie a hug before leaving again. Alex poked his head in to say good morning before they left, but by that time Izzie was unresponsive again, acknowledging him slightly with a look and an eyebrow raise, but no more than that. She heard Meredith's car pull out of the driveway and leave, assumedly giving Alex a ride to the hospital with her, and with that sound came an overwhelming feeling of aloneness.

It wasn't as if Izzie hadn't been alone for the past week; she'd been confining herself to almost solely her bedroom, speaking to almost no one, and when she did speak, saying the very minimum required of her. But it was different, having them downstairs where she knew at least there were other warm, live bodies in the house with her. Now they were at work, and she was by herself. One small person in a large, cold house. Suddenly it felt very cold. Izzie dropped a leg over the side of the bed and grabbed the blanket with her toes, throwing it up onto the bed and wrapping herself in it.

She reached out and grabbed the chapstick from the bedside table, uncapping it and coating her lips with it. It had a very natural, earthy smell to it, and Izzie liked it. Not your typical 89 cent tube of chapstick.

Her thoughts wandered away from chapstick before long, though, and back to the one singular thing that was consuming her life at the moment; grief. Overwhelming pain and loss. Everything she did, made her think of Denny. Somehow, every thought traced its way back to Denny. Every word that came out of her mouth seemed to pertain to Denny in some way, shape or form. Even the stale turkey sandwiches sitting at her bedside made her think of Denny, and she had no idea why.

"They're freaking turkey sandwiches, what the hell…" she muttered darkly and with incredulity, narrowing her eyes at the edible goods in question. Angry with herself for drowning in her pain the way she was only made her even more upset because she knew it wasn't what Denny would want her to do, so she turned on her other side and tried not to feel like the turkey sandwiches were staring at her. Okay, that was ridiculous. They couldn't stare at her, they didn't have eyes. Or a brain, or a soul. They were just turkey sandwiches. Sometimes a sandwich really is just a sandwich.

"Maybe I'm just going crazy," she reasoned with herself after a few minutes of judgmental glaring from the sandwiches. "Maybe the grief has driven me over the cliff of sanity and now I'm falling into the Gorge of Evil Sandwiches and that's just how it is, and soon they'll just take me away," Izzie said, feeling completely rational at the moment.

Then she laughed, for the first time in a week, because it only took her a moment to realize that it was probably the most irrational thing she'd ever thought or verbalized in her life. She wasn't thinking, she wasn't in her right state of mind. Hell, she thought a plate of processed deli meat on bread was looking down on her for the way she was handling her grief. That doesn't speak volumes for your mental lucidity.

Soon her laughter turned into grief-stricken tears, only this time there was nobody to cradle her and make her feel safe. This time there was no anchor to hold onto, to keep her from just floating away. She would have to stay grounded all by herself, and that prospect scared her.

"I just need…" she sobbed to nobody in particular, since there was nobody there to listen to her needs anyway, but couldn't finish. What did she need? Denny? She couldn't have that. She didn't want to accept it in her brain so she kept pushing it aside but sooner or later she'd have to square up with the fact that she could not have Denny. No matter how much she cried, no matter how hard she begged God to bring him back, it wasn't going to happen. Denny was gone. She couldn't have him anymore. No amount of faith or love could bring him back.

She just felt that she needed him, though, more than anything. She needed to feel his strong embrace, his big arms pulling her into him, giving her somewhere to hide from the pain. She needed to lie against his chest and feel him breath, listen to his feeble, fluttering heart trying to hold on just another week, just another day. Just long enough until a replacement came along. She needed to hear his laugh, his laugh that was so infectious you couldn't hear it without laughing yourself, even if you had absolutely no idea what was so funny in the first place. She needed to see his smile, see the sparkle in his eyes that had not yet died. She needed to hear him say he loved her again.

But she couldn't. They were in different planes of existence, the physical and the metaphysical, and if love were the only factor they would exist as one entity together, inseparable, forever. But love was not enough. Love is not enough. Izzie could not bring him back no matter how badly she wanted him, or needed him. No matter how much she loved him.

She could miss him until her dying day, she could move the mountains and the ocean with her overwhelming grief and anguish, but she could not bring Denny back to her, and that was perhaps the most difficult ideas to grasp. The absoluteness of it. The way a human life could be obliterated from the physical plane of existence, and no matter what you did, could never, ever return. The absolute finality of it.

It was the hopelessness that was the most painful part, though. Knowing these facts, knowing that you can do nothing to bring back the one you love with every particle of your being no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you cry and beg and plead. There is nothing you can do. Nothing. It is done. It is finalized, and it is complete. Whether you consented to it or not.

With this thought Izzie buried her face into her pillow, squeezing the life out of it, and sobbed until she could not cry any more. Then she fell into a deep, fitful sleep, full of the images she longed so horribly to touch, and yet in the same way wished she had not seen.

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**A/N:** The more reviews I get, the more chapters I post! I really appreciate the reviews, so please, please don't hesitate to give them. Yes I know I'm begging shamelessly, and yes, I know it's annoying, so review my chapters and I'll stop doing it. )


	5. Everywhere

**A/N:** I love you guys like woah. I got like...9 reviews on my last chapter, and it made me so happy I decided to put up another one tonight, haha. I also found out the value of a good title. I had a stand-in title, _Making Happy Endings_, because I couldn't think of anything decent. I had like... 3 reviews, on 3 chapters, which really isn't much at all. Nobody had any real interest in the story due to the sucky title. Then I changed the title to its permanent dubbance, _Running off the Edge of the Earth_, and in the space of a few hours I got 8 reviews. So yeah, titles are muy importante. Someone commented about... uh... wow I'm having an ADD moment here. OH! Somebody mentioned liking the chapter titles, and I wanted to say that they're all songs that I think everyone should listen to. Especially _Set the Fire to the Third Bar_, which is a Snow Patrol song, because that song is really fantastic.

OH I JUST REMEMBERED. Haha. Someone mentioned that if Izzie hadn't been eating for that long she would've been taken to the hospital. She's eating, just not much, and not frequently. When people lapse into a depression they handle eating one of two ways -- they either stop eating because they've lost all appetite, or they do what I do, and eat everything within a mile radius. So she is eating, she's just taking the first route.

On a different note, I'm not entirely fond of this chapter. It just would not come out the way I wanted it to, so I decided to leave it as-is. Skewer and flame-grill if you like, I would understand. Anyway, on to Chapter 5!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything. I wish I owned it, and in my wildest, most fruitful dreams I live at Seattle Grace and have McDreamy all for my very own, but sadly those are only dreams.

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**Chapter 5: Everywhere**

When Izzie finally woke up it was early evening, and she could hear someone bustling around in the kitchen. Odd, because it was usually she who was the busy one in that particular wing of the household. After a moment of internal tug-of-war, her desire to see who was on her turf overrode her complete apathy towards life, and she got out of bed. A white tank top and Strawberry Shortcake patterned panties completed her ensemble, and she was in need of a shower. Oh well, whoever it was could probably handle it.

The Anti-Bethany Whisper took the stairs lightly, attempting not to alert anyone of her descent from on high. Bare feet padded down to the end of the hall, and the smell of something sizzling reached her nose as she poked her head around the corner, peering into the kitchen. The sight shocked her.

Alex Karev was cooking in her kitchen. Well, Meredith's kitchen technically, but whatever. Point was, he was in there. Cooking. Big, macho, wrestling womanizer Dr. Alex Karev was cooking pork chops on the stovetop, and something that smelled suspiciously like brownies was baking in the oven. Izzie put her grief aside for a moment, contemplating how Alex ever became proficient in the kitchen, and then decided that obviously the boy had to feed himself, and probably learned this way. Starvation is a great motivator to learn how to cook, generally speaking.

He turned around quickly, whistling a tune and looking up to see Izzie's face in the doorway. She pulled around the corner, hoping he hadn't seen her, but too little too late.

"Izzie?" he called out questioningly, heading towards the door. She had nowhere to run, and just shut her eyes as he rounded the corner and nearly ran into her.

"Yes?" she asked quietly, eyes still shut.

"Hey, Iz, I wasn't expecting you to come down here," he said, grinning lopsidedly and pointing towards the kitchen. "I guess you saw me go all Iron Chef in there, huh?"

"I underestimated your domestic skills, Alex," Izzie said quietly, unable to help herself as she cracked a smile.

"There you go," he said, beaming at the sight of her face doing something other than crying or just staring vacantly into the abyss. "Are you hungry?" he asked suddenly, as if he just remembered that he had been cooking something up to that point.

"Er, yeah, sure. I guess. As long as it's not turkey sandwiches," she said darkly, following Alex into the kitchen. He pulled out a chair at the table for her, allowing her to drop down into it before sliding her towards the table effortlessly and pulling the pork chops off of the skillet, setting them on two Dixie paper plates.

"Nice china, Alex," Izzie commented, smirking.

"Bite me, I have no idea where Meredith keeps anything around here and I just saw these and figured they'd work. Can Your Highness handle it?" he asked, opening a jar of apple sauce with a 'pop' and pouring a considerable amount onto each paper plate next to the pork chops.

"Alex, what the…"

"Come on doll, don't tell me you've never heard of pork chops and applesauce?" he asked, setting the plate in front of her. The gave him an odd look, then gazed down at the plate in front of her. It didn't look exactly as appealing as some other soul-mate foods, but she didn't suppose she could knock it until she tried it. And she was really quite hungry – she hadn't eaten anything since about two days ago. So she took a bite, found it not to be too bad, and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing and realizing something.

"Alex, aren't you on call tonight?"

"I got Cristina to cover for me," he replied, getting up to pour himself another glass of milk. That boy drank more milk than anyone Izzie knew.

"She did that for you?" Izzie asked incredulously, thinking it was very un-Cristina-like to cover for Alex on his night on call.

"Well, yeah. I told her it was really important that I have tonight off, and she understood," he said casually, failing to make eye contact with Izzie. She scowled.

"You made Cristina cover for me so you could have a really, really important _dinner_ with me?" she asked doubtfully, to which Alex nodded, still staring at his pork chop.

"You needed to eat something, and I thought maybe you'd wanna talk," he said quietly, filling his mouth quite full before daring to look up at her.

"And what if I don't want to talk to you about anything of particular importance?" Izzie asked darkly, jabbing her pork chop with her fork. True, Alex had been there for her, but she still had lingering memories of the way he talked about and treated Denny when he was still alive. One good deed didn't cancel out all of that. Alex seemed to think on the question for a minute, then swallowed and answered.

"Well, then, at least I get a night off and dinner with a pretty girl," he said, arching his eyebrows and giving her another one of his Alex-ish lopsided grins before cleaning his plate of the last of any food. Izzie scoffed, poking the other half of her pork chop around her plate idly with her fork. She'd suddenly lost her appetite.

"I think I'm done," she said quietly, pushing her chair back from the table and standing up. Alex looked up at her, and she shook her head and left the table, trashing her plate on the way out of the kitchen.

"Izzie!" Alex called out after her, but by this point she was running up the stairs, tears burning her eyes. She shut her bedroom door just as he reached the top of the staircase. He tiptoed down the hall, pressing his ear against her door.

"Izzie?" he said again, waiting for a response.

"Go away," she said muffledly, as if she were speaking through her pillow.

"Izzie," Alex protested, not budging.

"Please?" she pleaded, her pitch high and wavering.

"Izzie, what's wrong?" Alex felt stupid the moment those words came out of his mouth. "I mean, not what's wrong, but why the sudden change of mood? I mean things were going okay…"

"Alex, being nice to me once or twice doesn't make up for all the horrible things you said to Denny while he was alive. Now that he's --" she stopped speaking for a minute; she almost said the word 'dead' but she hadn't verbalized his death yet, and saying that word would make it that much more real to her. She could wait for that. "Now you think that he's out of the way or something, and you're just trying to get back into my pants." She shouted all of this at Alex through the bedroom door, and he sighed audibly on the other side.

"Izzie, that's not true," he said patiently, shaking his head even though she couldn't see the action. "I'm just worried about you, you know?"

"You weren't very worried about me when you were talking about how Denny was a… practically a corpse!" she wailed, bursting into fresh tears again. Alex gritted his teeth; okay, bad move.

"You're right, Izzie. That was really horrible and insensitive of me, and I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I never thought that --" he stopped, biting his bottom lip for a moment. He heard her sniffles abate, and there was a tension in the air that made Alex feel as if she was listening to him. Interested in what he had to say to defend himself. He'd better make this count.

"Izzie, I never thought that Denny would really… die. I thought he was a strong guy and he'd pull through. And I was jealous. I thought once he got better you'd forget all about me because you were in love with him. I knew that I didn't stand a chance once he got his heart transplant, and so I acted like an ass. I'm sorry, Izzie. I'm _sorry_." His words rang out in the silence for a moment, giving Izzie time to let them sink in.

Then, footsteps. Alex held his breath as he heard her feet pad across the bedroom, and then saw the doorknob turn. The door cracked open, and one large, wet brown eye stared out at him from within the bedroom.

"You really meant that?" Izzie asked quietly, unsure.

"Every word. I want you to know that I… I am really sorry. And I want to be here for you, if you want me to be. I just want you to get…" he didn't want to say better, as if implying that there was something wrong with her. Obviously there was, but she probably wouldn't appreciate hearing that. "I just want you to get to a point where you're happy again. I want to see you happy, Iz," he said, and it was so heartfelt that Izzie opened the door another few inches and flashes him a tearful smile.

"Thank you, Alex. Really. It means a lot. I just need… some time. You know? I just need some time apart. I will let you in, though. When I'm ready." Alex nodded, and Izzie smiled another small, sad smile. He turned to walk away, and then Izzie called out to him.

"Alex!"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for dinner. It was good." He beamed, looking all puffed up like a proud rooster.

"Thanks," he said, strutting the remainder of the way down the hall and bounding down the stairs. Izzie chuckled to herself, shutting the bedroom door and laying out on her bed again. She was confused, and worst of all, she felt as if she were betraying Denny's memory by fraternizing with Alex. After all the things he said and did, and now he says he's sorry? Was that enough? Could that be enough to erase his hurtful words and mistreatment? Izzie pondered this, hugging the pillow to her chest with a troubled look on her face, and reached across the bed to the bedside table. She uncapped the chapstick and rubbed some on her lips, setting it back in its place and shutting her eyes. It helped the thought process. She didn't know why, but it helped calm her.

_Alex is a good guy,_ a voice in her head said.

"So was Denny," Izzie replied aloud, furrowing her eyebrows.

_Alex loves you, he really cares about you,_ the voice persisted.

"So did Denny," she retorted, pressing her face into her pillow.

_But Denny's dead_, the voice said firmly but comfortingly, and she felt a fresh wave of tears soak the pillowcase.

"I know," she whispered to nobody in particular. "I know."

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**A/N:** So there's your Izzie/Alex interaction, for now. I'm not gonna say much but you might be pleasently surprised later on. Hehe... review and I will love you for life! And post chapters faster. So yeah. Do it. Please. xD


	6. Unwell

**A/N: **Weeeee reviews are so great. I'm glad you guys liked Chapter 5, even if I wasn't entirely fond of it. This chapter I really like, probably because I had a lot of fun writing it. I wrote Chapter 9 last night and REALLY like it, I can't wait to show you guys. It's kind of AU because the show doesn't really... oh well I'm getting ahead of myself now, you guys are only on Chapter 6 -grins- Anyway, here it is, enjoy! Oh, and remember, reviews are love, so share the love!

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. At all. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Just my little fantasy land.

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**Chapter 6: Unwell**

A week passed, two weeks passed, in the same somber rhythm. The other interns went to work their shifts at the hospital, and Meredith and George would bring her food every night they were home and try to get her to talk and eat and bathe and be a normal, happy member of society. Alex stopped by every other day just about, but he never actually came in to speak to her; she could hear him downstairs talking to George and Meredith, asking how she was, but he never ascended the stairs to her bedroom. Izzie couldn't decide how she felt about that.

_He's giving you the space you asked for_, the voice, who Izzie had taken to having long, thought-provoking conversations with, pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess," Izzie said, agreeing with a sigh.

_Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it,_ the voice said, doing a remarkable impression of Izzie's mother back home. She grimaced.

"Right. Thanks," she said, turning over and pressing her face into the mattress, the misshapen pillow still in her tight grip. The sheets smelled a bit rank – they hadn't been changed in over a month, and in the past three weeks Izzie had done nothing all day but lay in that bed, only bathing when she absolutely could not stand the smell of herself any longer. Meaning possibly twice since the funeral. Those sheets were bound to pick up a smell after a while.

_Normally you would change those_, the voice said almost accusationally.

"What is normal about this?" Izzie said, the vague 'this' referring to her entire life in the past month.

_You're the only one making it abnormal. People die every day; you know that, you work in a hospital._

"Worked," Izzie corrected. Past-tense. She did not work there anymore.

_Whatever. You worked in a hospital; you know that people die every day, lots of them. And lots of people grieve and suffer, and lots of people move on._ The voice stressed the last two words, as if trying to make a point to her.

"Mhmm, thanks for that bit of information," Izzie said blandly, wishing she could do something to shut it up.

_Why are you letting yourself wallow in this?_ the voice asked.

"I'm not wallowing," Izzie hissed. "I'm grieving." She was grieving. Grief was perfectly normal. Everyone grieved when they lost someone close to them. It was a normal response. If she wasn't grieving, if she was perfectly chipper and normal, that would be worrisome.

_No, what's worrisome is you laying in this bed for three weeks. Grief is normal, but becoming completely apathetic and refusing social contact is not normal,_ the voice insisted, making what was a rather valid point, although Izzie refused to admit it was.

"Don't tell me what's normal – you're a disembodied voice, now _that's_ not normal," Izzie said, smirking to herself.

_Don't change the subject. You're not even making an attempt to live your life again._

"Why should I just yet?" Izzie asked quietly, not sure she wanted an answer.

_Because you didn't die, Denny did. You're still alive, although nobody would know it by the way you're acting._

Izzie didn't respond. She thought about the truth behind those words, and it felt as if something particularly heavy was sitting on her chest as she lay on her back in the bed, staring at the ceiling fan whirring overhead.

_It's not healthy and you know it, you're a doctor._

"Was," Izzie corrected again.

_Whatever. You know I'm right._

"Just shut up," she growled, wrapping the pillow around her head in an attempt to shut out the voice, as if it were external. At least those turkey sandwiches were gone.

_It's a perfectly nice day, why not go for a jog?_ the voice suggested._ You don't eat much but you'll get fat all the same just lying around._

"How about not. And why won't you just leave me alone?" she hissed, wishing she had someone to glare at but all she could do was glare hatefully at the ceiling.

_Why won't you just listen to me and get out of bed?_ the voice countered.

"I don't want to get out of bed!" she finally shouted, her voice ringing throughout the room. She was glad nobody else was home, or they might think she was crazy. Which, she thought to herself, she probably was.

_Well I don't want to leave you alone. And you're not crazy. Not totally, anyway._

"Gee, thanks, that's really heartening, coming from the voice in my head," Izzie said darkly.

_You know it_, the voice said, and she thought she could hear the tone of a smirk as the voice spoke those words.

"I want you to go away."

_I want you to get up and do something._

"No. Go away."

_No. Get up._

"Screw you."

_Love you too. Now get up._

Izzie sighed loudly.

"If I get up and do something, will you shut the hell up?"

_Yes,_ the voice stated simply, and Izzie's lips curled into a thin smile.

"Fine. I'm up," she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and sitting up. Her head was swimming and she felt lightheaded, but she braced herself and soon the feeling disappeared. She got up and stretched, and traipsed down the stairs for the first time in days. Admittedly, it did feel good to walk down the stairs and into the kitchen. She hadn't been in there since two weeks ago, with Alex.

_Baking something?_ the voice asked with mild interest.

"I thought you were going away if I got up?" Izzie asked, pulling assorted items from the pantry; flour, brown and granulated sugars, salt, and chocolate chips.

_Right, sorry._

She dipped into the refrigerator and brought out eggs, and butter. It felt good to be baking something again; baking had always had therapeutic qualities for Izzie, and she had all but forgotten that in the wake of Denny's death. It would be good for her.

Mix the flour, the salt, the baking soda. Cream the sugars, the butter, the vanilla extract. Crack two eggs into the mix and blend. Slowly pour in the dry mix, making thick dough. Sprinkle in the chocolate chips. Everything was second nature to Izzie; she had done this at least a hundred times in her life, it was imprinted into her brain.

_You have to set this oven 20 degrees cooler for the black cookie sheets, remember?_ the voice said, and Izzie set her jaw. She was about to yell, until she realized that the voice was right. Turning down the preheat temperature, she shook her head.

"What is so difficult about keeping your end of the bargain?" she asked.

_Well excuse me, if you want burnt cookies by all means make burnt cookies,_ the voice said in affronted tones. Izzie smiled.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you… me… er…"

_Don't mention it._

"Mmmm, right," she said, smiling. She had smiled twice in under a minute; this had to be a record for the week.

By the time the fifth dozen of cookies was out of the oven, and the kitchen surfaces were covered with cookie racks laden with warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies, there was the sound of wheels crunching over gravel in the driveway. Before long, George and Meredith's voices were carrying in through the open kitchen window, and Izzie's face was in the oven pulling out another done batch when the key clicked in the door and the two interns entered the house.

"Mmmm, what's that smell?" George asked, kicking his shoes off in the doorway from the sound of it. Izzie hadn't thought about how shocked her roommates would be to find her up and moving. It made her a little apprehensive; would they think she was ready to talk about it? Would they push her?

"Smells like chocolate chip cookies," Meredith said, dropping her purse onto the small table by the front door with a familiar thud. Izzie hadn't known how familiar every action of her roommates' was to her until she realized she could tell what every one of them was.

"But who's baking --" George started, but before he could finish his sentence the two rounded the corner into the kitchen and stopped dead, silence falling. Izzie could tell by the shocked expression on George's face that he wasn't expecting her up any time soon, and from the stunned but wisely knowing look on Meredith's that she had an idea of what Izzie was getting out of her system with those cookies.

Izzie smiled at the pair, peeling the warm, gooey cookies off of the sheet with a spatula and setting them on a free cookie rack.

"Cookies?" she offered, pointing to a tray of cookies that had cooled enough to be eaten. Meredith stepped forward and took one, George doing the same, and they nibbled them thoughtfully.

"They're good," Meredith said, and George nodded; his mouth was too full to say anything. Izzie smiled, taking one up for herself and biting into it, chewing pensively.

"Yeah, they are," she said, nodding. They were good. Good to make, good to eat.

_I bet they wouldn't have liked burnt cookies,_ the voice piped in, still sounding insulted. _I bet they're glad I told you to turn the oven down._

"Alright, alright," Izzie said, shaking her head and smiling as she took another bite into her cookie. Meredith and George gave her matching quizzical looks, but Izzie just shook her head.

"It's been a noisy day," she offered up as explanation, and Meredith just nodded.

"I get those sometimes," she said, and smiled. Izzie smiled. George smiled. They all smiled, and the kitchen was warm, and the voice was quiet, and for just one brief moment, everything felt right again.


	7. Stay With You

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews! This chapter I'm fond of because (1) It's got George in it, and George is a fun guy, and (2) It's got a Monty Python quote embedded in it somewhere. Can you find it? Anyway, here's chapter 7, enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I don't own it. I don't pretend to own it. Do I wish I owned it? Hell yeah I do. But the sad truth is that I do not.

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**Chapter 7: Stay With You**

Since the cookie-baking incident, Izzie had taken to migrating between her bedroom and the couch in the living room. She was still minimally-responsive, only giving one or two-word answers to anyone who spoke to her, and her eyes retained a dull, glazed-over look. But at least she was up every once in a while, and it looked as if she had taken another shower. Definitely a good sign.

"You hungry?" George asked, setting himself down on the couch near her feet. He had the day off from work, and instead of spending it with Callie as she had wanted him to, he told her it was important that he spend some time with Izzie, to see if maybe she wanted to talk. The interns' main goal lately seemed to be to make Izzie talk about her grief over Denny – keeping it inside wasn't healthy, they thought, and aside from that her silence and apathetic mood were unnerving. So far, though, they hadn't been successful. She was as clammed-up as ever.

"Not really," Izzie said, not even bothering to look at George as she said it. She was in a ratty Dartmouth t-shirt and as was typical, a bright pair of Hello Kitty panties. She had taken to wearing not just George's t-shirts, but Meredith's too, since Izzie had no desire to do laundry and had run out of clothes to wear. As infrequently as she bathed, she changed shirts a bit more often. Common courtesy to the people she lived with.

"Come on, you skipped breakfast, you should eat lunch," George insisted. Izzie gave him a look, then sighed.

"Fine. What are we having?"

"We're going to walk down to the pizza parlor and have a slice," he said. Izzie really gave him a look this time.

"No," she said flatly, turning back to staring out the window.

"Why not? You haven't been out of the house since…" George said, but trailed off before he finished with 'the funeral'. It had been just at a month ago, but she had yet to step foot outside of the house. George was surprised she hadn't gone completely stir-crazy; the normal Izzie would've.

"I don't feel like it," she said in the same flat, emotionless voice.

"Izzie, you really need to go out and get some fresh air. It would be good for you," George insisted, and realized he had said something wrong by the look Izzie gave him.

"You know," she said venomously, standing up from the couch, "I wish people around here would stop telling me what's good for me! I'm a grown woman, George, and if I want to lay in this house until I _die_, then I'll do it!" she shouted, storming out of the living room and stomping up the stairs loudly. George sighed, shaking his head and rising to his feet. He trudged slowly up the stairs, tip-toeing silently to her door and pressing his ear against it to listen. She wasn't crying, which was a good sign.

"Izzie?" he asked, rapping his knuckles on the door. When he didn't get a response, he opened it. She was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with a resentful look on her face.

"What?" she asked shortly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was telling you what to do," George apologized empathetically, shifting his weight from foot to foot in typical nervous-George fashion. "I just worry about you, being locked away in this house. It's like you really _are _just waiting until you die." He looked nervously at her, waiting for a response. She shot him a seething look, but then her expression softened. She sighed heavily.

"I know. I'm sorry I snapped, I just get tired of hearing the same thing. I know you worry. I don't really blame you for it, honestly," she finished frankly, sounding as if she too were worried about her state of self. George wandered across the room and sat on the edge of her bed, looking at her thoughtfully. They were silent for a minute before he finally spoke.

"You know," he said, "Sunlight, exposure to like 30 minutes of it a day, is supposed to elevate mood-enhancing endorphins in your system."

"Says who?" she asked, caught between not caring and being mildly interested.

"I dunno, I read that somewhere. Maybe if you went outside, went for a walk, you'd feel a little better," he suggested, waiting on tenterhooks for her reply. She set her jaw and looked stubborn for a moment, like she was going to refuse again, but then rolled her eyes.

"Fine," she said, sitting up and looking at George on eye level. "I'll get dressed, and we'll walk down to the pizza place. There and back. No detours," she said firmly, and George just smiled and nodded. She picked up a discarded pair of jeans from her floor that nobody knew how long had been there, and slipped them on. She looked at George.

"I'm ready," she said. George gave her an 'are you seriously going like that?' look, but at the brief, dark glare Izzie spared him, he decided it best to say nothing and just be happy she was getting out of the house.

"Well alright then, let's go," he said, quickly bounding down the stairs and jumping the last three, landing at the bottom of the steps with a loud thud. He put on his shoes in record time, and was standing half-in-half-out of the open door by the time Izzie was half-way down the steps. He wanted to get out as quickly as possible before she changed her mind about going anywhere.

It was really quite a nice day; the sky was dotted with distant little fluffs of white cloud here and there, but for the most part it was a clear, deep azure that seemed higher than any sky had the right to be. The trees were flush with foliage and the street was still dark from rain the night before. The sun shone brightly and uninhibited, and Izzie squinted against it when she stepped out into the light, eyes burning – she hadn't been out in the direct sunlight in a while.

"Nice day, huh?" George said chipperly, almost bouncing as he walked down the sidewalk. Izzie nodded, looking around her once her eyes had adjusted to the light. It really was a nice day out. She hadn't been outside in so long; the last time she'd stepped foot outside of the house was… well, she tried not to think about it. They rounded the corner and walked down a narrow street lined with various delis, parlors and antique shops. This particular street had a more small-town feel than most of the outlying neighborhoods of Seattle had, like a historic downtown, and George was particularly fond of it. Izzie was too, and seeing the metal-hinged signs hanging above the doors of the two-story brick buildings that lined either side of the two-lane road made her smile despite herself.

Their arrival to the small pizza shop, barely ten steps wide and twenty steps back, was announced by a light-hearted bell tied to the door handle. The floor was checkered black and white, and three small round tables were shoved into the parlor, along with a counter and a rack laden with chips and other packaged snacks. The smell of freshly-made pizza oozed out of the back room, where a large oven was visible if you craned your neck to look in through the open door in the back. A nice, homey little place by any standard.

George ordered while Izzie took a seat at one of the cramped tables, the one closest to the wide glass window in the front. She leaned her elbows against the table and stared idly out the window, watching the passers-by. A few of them looked in as they walked by, but most of them walked right by the large glass window as if it were invisible; you could see out, but nobody bothered to see in. Watching the world pass by without actually being a part of it. Something about that held appeal.

George came back to the table shortly with two large slices of pizza on two paper plates, setting one in front of her with a grin. Izzie was briefly brought back to the memory of Alex's dinner attempt, but she banished the thought from her mind; regardless, the sinking feeling of betrayal to Denny crawled into her stomach anyway, and she pushed the plate idly.

"Come on," George said through a mouthful of pizza, which he choked down before continuing. "You promised you'd eat something." Izzie gave him a baleful look before picking up her own slice and taking the tiniest of bites into it, chewing thoughtfully. It was good, so she continued to eat, and the sick feeling in her stomach abated. They ate without speaking for a while, the sounds of the chef shouting 'Order up!' and the tinkling of the bell as customers entered and exited serenading them throughout their meal.

"You done?" George asked, looking at the half-eaten piece of pizza in front of Izzie. True, the slices were 'as big as your head!' as advertised, but Izzie had a healthy appetite and could usually finish one off without a problem.

"Yeah, I think so," she said, and George nodded and took her plate with his to the garbage can. Izzie rose from the table and they left, walking slowly down the sidewalk together back towards the house. They were full and the walk was long, and to their left there was a small park. Nothing extravagant, just a slide and some swings and a set of monkey bars all thrown into a grassy clearing, but it was there nonetheless.

"Wanna stop and sit for a minute?" George asked hopefully, wanting to keep Izzie out of the house for as long as possible. She shrugged apathetically, and George led her into the park, wandering over and sitting down on one of the swings. He was rather big for it, as most adults would be, and it brought him back to the nostalgic glory days of childhood. Izzie took a seat in the swing next to him, wrapping her arms around the chains that held the swing seat up and looking down at the sand, her ankles crossed beneath her.

"What's on your mind?" George asked quietly, thinking this would be as good a time as any to see if she wanted to talk.

"Nothing," she said, still staring down at the sand, where she had begun to trace a swirly symbol in the ground with the toe of her shoe. It was 'infinity'.

"You don't look like you have nothing on your mind," George said, hoping she wouldn't get mad. She didn't, she just sighed. They sat in silence for a moment, and then she spoke again.

"I'm dead, George," she stated simply.

"You're not dead, you're pining," George replied, and Izzie snorted. He couldn't tell if it was a derisive or amused snort, because she was not making any sort of face that dictated either, so he let the joke die there.

"I feel dead inside, George," she finally said after another moment of silence. He did not respond, just listened, and after a moment she continued. "I feel like they buried part of me with… with Denny. It's just so hard to get up and do anything anymore. I feel like, what's the point?" she explained, sagging her shoulders. George thought for a moment before speaking, trying to find just the right words for what he was trying to say. Loquaciousness had never been one of his strong points, so getting the right message across verbally was difficult for him.

"But you're… you're not dead. You didn't die, and that's the point. You're still alive and you know… you know Denny wouldn't want you to just lie around and wait for your life to end. He had to do enough of that," George said firmly, causing Izzie to look up at him. "He did enough of that, lying around and… and waiting to die. Why would he want you to do the same thing? He would want… he would want for you to live. He wanted to live his life to the fullest, so instead of… of just lying around all day and feeling hollow inside, you should get up and live _your_ life to the fullest and be happy, since he couldn't. He would want you to, he loved you."

Izzie looked at George for a while, then looked away into the distance, as if trying to compose herself. Then she spoke.

"You're right, George. Honestly. You're right. He wouldn't want me to do what I'm doing. But it's so hard. It's so, so hard. I just miss him."

"I know it is. I mean, I don't know, not personally, but I can tell from looking at you that it's hard for you, and you miss him a lot. But you'll see him again," George said hopefully, nodding. "You'll see him again, and when you do, you should be able to talk to him about all the life you lived, instead of how you laid around in misery for years until you just faded away." Izzie nodded, and a weak smile crossed her face.

"I know. And I will. I promise."

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**A/N:** "This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot. It's a stiff! Berift of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushin' up the daisies! It's hung down the curtain, joined the choir invisible! This is an EX-PARROT!" - Monty Python, Dead Parrot Sketch

Leave me reviews, because reviews are love!


	8. Note to Self

**A/N:** You guys know I love you! -grins- Anyway, this is another one of those chapters that I feel kind of "eeh" about. Could've been better, but it wouldn't let itself be edited. It was a stubborn chapter, haha, so it stayed as-is. Letter writing really is an extremely therapeutic way of handling your emotions, just incase anyone was wondering -- I've done a lot of it in the past, which is why I brought it up in this chapter. Anyway, here you are, chapter 8!

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**Chapter 8: Note to Self**

Izzie felt considerably alleviated after her talk with George in the park. They had walked back to the house in silence, but when they got home Izzie put a load of clothes in the washing machine, with fabric softener and all. Her folding was messy and she hadn't bothered to separate the lights and darks, but it was definitely a start.

The next morning, her cell phone rang at about 11:30. This wasn't unusual, because Meredith and George called her frequently, at least twice a day, just to ask how she was. They had slackened off on that in the past two weeks or so because of an outburst she had at George about being checked on like a small child incapable of handling herself, so that she maybe got a call only every other day, usually from Meredith asking if she'd eaten anything recently. This morning's call made her breath catch, though, because when she looked at the Caller ID on the front of the phone, it read 'Alex Cell'. She held the ringing phone in her hand for a second, biting on her bottom lip, then flipped it open and took a deep breath.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Izzie? It's Alex." He sounded nervous, which was very unlike him.

"Hey, Alex," she said softly, leaning back against the headboard of the bed. There was a moment of awkward silence before he spoke again.

"So, er… how are you? I haven't talked to you in a while, I just wanted to --"

"Check up on me?" Izzie said, in a tone more irritated than she had intended for it to come out.

"Yes. Er, well, no. I mean yes, and no. You see…" Alex fumbled with his words, sounding more like George now.

"Never mind, I'm sorry. I know what you mean," Izzie said quickly, and heard Alex breathe an audible sigh of relief on the other end of the line.

"Oh, that's good. Well… how are you?" he asked tentatively.

"I'm okay."

"Good to hear. We miss you at the hospital," he said quietly, so that Izzie had to press the phone hard against her ear to hear him.

"Oh," was all Izzie could reply to that. She had tried to avoid discussing the hospital, or her prior career there, if at all possible.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up something," Alex said quickly, being entirely more sensitive than Izzie was used to him being. It was kind of cute.

Mentally she kicked herself for thinking that.

_Traitor._

"I am not," Izzie said out loud, into the phone before she realized it.

"You're not what?" Alex asked, puzzled.

"Nothing, sorry. I was thinking about something else."

"Oh. Well uh, I'm gonna let you go; I need to go get ready to scrub in. I'm with the Vagina Squad again, but She-Shepherd had a whole bunch of caesarians lined up for today, this is the third one I've scrubbed in on. Sweet, huh?" he said, sounding like normal Alex again.

"Yeah, definitely," Izzie said, with enough pep in her voice to sound false. Damn.

"Alright. Well, I'll talk to you later Iz. Bye," he said, and Izzie barely had time to say 'bye' before she heard the phone hang up on the other end. She closed hers, setting it on the bedside table before shutting her eyes hard. Trying to block out her thoughts or clear them, she wasn't really sure.

"I am not a traitor to Denny's memory," she verbalized.

_Are you sure?_ the voice questioned, sounding almost accusational.

"Yes. Well… no. Yes. I don't know."

_You don't seem to know anything lately,_ the voice said rather insensitively, and Izzie wondered briefly if it was still miffed about the cookie incident last week.

"I know that he would want me to be happy," she said quietly.

_Happy with the guy who called him a living corpse?_

"He apologized!" she defended before she realized what she was saying.

_Do you think that's enough?_ the voice inquired.

"Well, what more can he do?" she questioned in response.

_Did he really mean it?_

"Yes, he did."

_Are you sure?_

"Yes," she said firmly.

The voice fell silent.

---------------------------

Later that evening, Izzie made the decision to leave her bedroom and join Meredith and George for dinner, since they returned home around 9:30. Over plates of spaghetti they made small talk, until Meredith decided to bring up the phone call.

"So I hear Alex called you, huh?" she asked, twirling a noodle around her fork and looking up over her plate at Izzie for her response.

"Yes, he did," Izzie replied shortly, twirling her own noodles with great focus.

"Did he have anything interesting to say?" Meredith ventured.

"Just small talk, really. Checking up on me like everyone else," Izzie said bitterly, more so than she meant to. She grimaced. "Sorry, I didn't mean it to come out that way. I appreciate you guys caring, really."

Meredith smiled.

"Don't worry, we know what you mean," she said, sounding strikingly similar to Izzie during her phone conversation earlier that day. Izzie smiled appreciatively.

"He's worried about you," George said, eating his way through a rather large plate of pasta. Meredith shot him a look.

"I know," Izzie said, looking down into her pasta and imagining the noodles taking the shape of Alex's facial features, morphed into a concerned face.

The rest of the dinner went smoothly, with more small talk and noodle-twirling. Izzie bid Meredith and George good night and went up to her bedroom under the false pretense of going to sleep. In reality, though, she probably wouldn't sleep anytime soon – she hadn't slept much since the funeral, spending entirely too much time in the late-night with her own very personal, confused, somber thoughts.

She tossed and turned for nearly an hour in the dark, eventually hearing George's footsteps as he trekked up the stairs to his bedroom. She heard a set of lighter footsteps follow a few minutes later, and saw Meredith's face peer in through the crack in her partially-opened door, but Izzie pretended to be asleep, shutting her eyes so that she could just barely peer through the slits. Meredith smiled, much as a parent looking upon their soundly-sleeping child would, and shut the door quietly, heading back down the stairs.

Finally Izzie, feeling unusually restless, had to get up from the bed. She paced back and forth across her room for a few minutes, pausing every so often to look out the window and into the sky. Only a few stars were visible; there was a lot of light pollution from downtown Seattle, making only the brightest shine in the night sky.

_Can't sleep?_ the voice inquired mildly.

"No," she whispered back, trying to speak no louder so as not to awaken George, whose room was only across the hall.

_Try writing something,_ the voice suggested. Izzie frowned; she had never been much of a scribe.

"What good'll that do?" she asked skeptically, and heard a loud sigh inside of her head.

_Honestly, you don't have to be any good, just try it. Empty your head onto the paper; if anything, it'll get you to sleep._

"I don't want to write anything," she said stubbornly, sitting on the edge of her bed and staring into the darkness of the room. Her eyes were adjusted to the lack of light, and everything in her room was dark outlines and shadows.

_How about you write a letter?_ the voice suggested again.

"To whom, exactly?" Izzie asked.

_How about somebody you really want to talk to?_

"Like?" she asked, knowing somewhere in the back of her mind what the voice would say before it said anything at all.

_How about Denny?_

Izzie felt her mouth go dry, the insides of her throat feeling stuck together. She swallowed loudly.

"Why would I do that?" she asked. "Not as if he can read it."

_Good God, you're so skeptical about everything. Just try it. Seriously._

Izzie bit her bottom lip, eyebrows furrowed, then shrugged.

"Alright. Not as if I have anything better to do," she said, wandering through the dark room over to her desk. She pulled a spiral notebook out of the desk drawer, fumbling in a top drawer for a pen. She didn't bother turning the table lamp on, and instead pressed her pen to the first sheet of paper in blind hope that she was writing close to the line, a line, any line.

She pondered what to say, then just started writing.

_**Dear Denny,**_

_**It's been just over a month since you died. Wow, writing those words just threw it into sharp reality; you're dead. I don't think I've actually said that yet, until just now. You're dead. You are not alive anymore. But you know that. It's not as if I need to remind you.**_

_**I've been missing you a lot. Every moment of every day. I don't think you'd want me to carry on for so long about you dying, but I can't help it. I really loved you. I still love you, because love transcends physical life. It is life and afterlife, if you really love someone. And I really love you.**_

_**I'm trying to move on and live my life, but it's hard. I feel like I should be sad all the time, because you're not with me. Things I should enjoy I can't, because I can't share them with you. That's not fair to me, maybe, but I don't care – I just want you to be here more than anything. But you're not, and I can't change that.**_

_**Alex is being really nice to me, and I don't know how to take it. Is it insulting to your memory to be happy that he cares about me, Denny? I don't want to hurt you, even in death, by giving my heart to someone else. Not that I plan on giving it up anytime soon, I'm just too… I'm just not ready for that. But Alex really cares about me, he wants to be let in, and I just don't feel right about opening the door. The way he talked to you, about you… forgiving him is hard, I think.**_

_**I really don't know what to think anymore, though. I'm so confused about everything. About how to feel, about who to talk to and what to talk about, about how long I should be sad before I let myself be happy again. Before I attempt to be happy again. About how long Alex will wait for me to open the door, if I ever end up doing that. I wish I could talk to you again.**_

_**All my love,**_

_**Izzie**_

She filled up an entire page in her loopy, connected handwriting, writing out the things that had been plaguing her thoughts. She was surprised at how easily it was to write the letter; it was as if she was having a one-sided conversation with Denny himself, and it really did feel therapeutic.

_I told you so,_ the voice chimed in, after she had torn the letter out of the notebook and folded it into quarters, slipping it into the bottom drawer of her desk.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, feeling her way back over to the bed and laying down again. This time her thoughts felt much less disconnected and more focused in a general direction, and the calm in her mind helped ease her into a sleep that she would not have otherwise found, and into a dream that she so badly needed.

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**A/N:** So, I really like the chapter that's coming up. Even if it is kind of AU because certain parts of it would never occur in the show. But I liked it anyway so it stays. It also wrote itself with extreme ease, which I think will be apparent when you read it. Anyway, enough of what's to come -- love or hate this chapter, let me know what you think!


	9. The Truth About Heaven

**A/N:** This is the chapter that some of you will love me for, and some of you will hate me for. This is one I would call very AU because only once have we seen part of the doctors' dreams in the show, and that wasn't even a true dream sequence, more thoughts than dreams actually. But you know, the more the story was written, the better I felt about eventually having this chapter, and then the opportunity presented itself, so I ran with it.

Some of you have been asking why Izzie is talking to herself, it's concerning for her mental well-being, et cetera... well, Izzie has never struck me as an extremely emotionally stable person, and people with emotional stability issues tend to have mental stability issues as well is my belief, so why not? Plus the voice is fun to write, so while I am not yet sure, he might be making another appearance. There is some symbolism in the voice, which I will explain later if you don't understand him yet. (No, he's not Denny. Or God. Although that would be fun... but no. He's not really even a _he_, he's just an _it_.)

And no, Cristina Yang has NOT dropped off the face of the planet... you actually get to see her very, very soon. I love Cristina, writing her really works well for me-- if you haven't read _Blurry Edges_, my suggestion would be to read it after you read this, but of course I wrote it so I would suggest that, haha. But yeah, I love writing her, so she's definately making her appearance soon.

I'm proud of you if you read that whole note! -grins- And now, barring a sudden need to further discuss or explain, chapter nine!

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, in any way. Except for the Voice. I totally own the Voice. Who doesn't even make an appearance in this chapter so mentioning the Voice at all was kind of impertinent wasn't it?

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**Chapter 9: The Truth About Heaven**

No sooner than the moment her head hit the pillow, bent out of shape in the center from her constant grip on it, her eyes were shut and she was slipping into the realm of sleep.

-------

Her eyes snapped open, as if she had been shaken awake suddenly. She looked around her; she was standing dead in the center of the hallway on the surgical floor. She was in her scrubs, a stethoscope hanging heavy around her neck. She looked around her for her coworkers, but she was the only person on the wing. In fact, Izzie had the suspicion that she was the only person in the hospital. There was no sound save for her labored breathing, and the sound of her heart hammering in her ears.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Babum, babum, babum.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Babum, babum, babum.

The halls were wider than she remembered them being, and unnaturally white. Pristine. Holy, even. Maybe, Izzie thought, this was heaven; heaven was one big hospital. Not likely, though, as many people as there were who disliked the hospital. The floor was scuff-free and the linoleum shone in the fluorescent lighting overhead, seeming oddly wide in some places and peculiarly narrow in others. Surreal. There seemed to be no light filtering through the windows from outside of the hospital – in fact, the windows were completely black, as if there were a starless night outside. The only light came from within, casting an eerie glow on everything. Made even spookier by the lack of anyone else around.

Izzie suddenly felt a magnetic pull within her telling her to wander down the halls. Towards what, she had no idea, but she needed to start walking around. Then she'd know. She didn't know how she'd know, but she just knew she'd know.

Thinking that sentence in her head made Izzie's brain swim, and she shook her head vigorously, feeling the gray matter within her skull wobble around. Her shoes squeaked against the floor, echoing far down the hallway and seeming to reverberate off of the walls, bouncing through the empty rooms. Unnaturally loud. Nothing here was natural.

She took a sudden turn to the right for no reason, and realized she was heading towards the CCU – Cardiac Care Unit.

_No, I don't want to go there,_ Izzie thought to herself, but her feet seemed to be moving completely independently from the signals her brain was sending, and so she continued down the hall, passing empty room after empty room. Some rooms have TVs on in them, but there was nothing but silent white static playing on the screen. It sent chills up Izzie's spine as she took another right, down a hall with more CCU rooms. She searched for somebody, anybody besides for herself in the hospital, but there was no one.

She finally stopped, unaware that she was about to do so and nearly stumbling over from her body's continued momentum. She caught herself and looked at the room she had come to a halt in front of – it was Denny's room. Denny's old room, actually. The door was shut – the first door she'd seen that wasn't wide open – and she had the sudden urge to knock on it. So she did.

"Come in," a voice said. A familiar voice. A familiar male voice. A husky, deep, familiar male voice, and Izzie was sure she felt her heart skip about four beats.

Denny.

She pushed the door open, and saw him lying in the hospital bed.

"Well hello Dr. Stevens," he said good-naturedly, grinning at her. She smiled nervously, eyes flicking around the room. No machines hooked up to him, no uncut LVAD wires, no chart, no personal items. Just Denny, in an otherwise-empty room.

But when Izzie looked closer, this image of Denny sitting in front of her wasn't quite right. There was something almost hazy about him, like she was looking at a picture taken by a camera held by a shaky hand. The edges were fuzzy, the color wasn't quite right. It wasn't a perfect image, just a blurry memory. Just a tad off the marker.

"What, you've got nothing to say to me?" he asked, in a mock-hurt voice. Izzie blinked a few times, and then cleared her throat.

"Uh… Denny?" she inquired, squinting at him as if trying to throw his image into focus.

"Yep, that's me," he said, nodding.

"But this isn't… I mean… you're dead," she said, still feeling like a hunk of ice was dropped into the pit of her stomach every time she said the word.

"Oh, I know," he said frankly, as if that made no difference whatsoever.

"Oh. Er… okay then. Hi," she said awkwardly, taking a seat in a chair across the room from his hospital bed. She stared at him for a little while, and he stared back, and then he broke the silence.

"This is weird for you, isn't it?" he asked, and she nodded.

"I wasn't expecting to see you again for a while," she said quietly, and he nodded in a knowing way.

"I know, but I thought I should talk to you. You're not happy." He said the words in a somber tone, with a look on his face that clearly said _when you're not happy, I'm not happy_.

"I'm… I'm trying. But I miss you," she said, tears stinging her eyes.

"Don't cry, please. I know you miss me, I miss you too, believe me. I miss you so much, but it's bittersweet… I miss you, but I don't miss the life I was living when you knew me. I'm better now, Izzie. I really am in a better place, and I'm happy."

"You are?" she squeaked out, and he nodded, smiling.

"Yeah. I can hike in the mountains and I can swim in the lakes and I can jog around the block, it's great."

"There are mountains and lakes and blocks to jog around… up there?" Izzie asked curiously. Denny nodded, grinning.

"There's everything. Everything I could ever want. Except you." He smiled sadly

"I love you, Denny," she said quietly, a tear straying down her cheek despite her efforts to hold them back.

"I know, Izzie. I can feel it, all the way up there. Love is not enough to bring me back, you're right, but it's enough to make my heaven even brighter. Every time you think about me, I can feel it. Every time you cry because I'm not there, I feel like someone hit me in the chest with a battering ram. Izzie, believe me when I say that I know how much you love me, and also believe when I say that I love you just as much. I don't know if you can feel how much I love you the way I can feel it up there, how much you love me, but I do, Izzie. And because I love you, I want you to be happy. As happy as you can be, whether I'm there or not. Time is so… there's not a lot of it. You have to be happy while you're still around, you know?" Denny finally stopped talking, giving Izzie a moment to take it all in and process it.

"I feel like I'm insulting your memory every time I'm happy," she said, neglecting to add the _and every time I'm near Alex_ part to the sentence, but she had a feeling from the look on his face that he knew what she had left off anyway.

"Izzie, letting your heart heal isn't an insult to my memory. I want you to heal more than anything, and I want you to love again. I don't want your ability to love deeply to have been buried with my body, Iz. And just so you know… Alex really is sorry about the things he said. I can feel that too." He nodded, raising his eyebrows, and Izzie bit her bottom lip.

"I just feel… confused."

"Let me tell you something, Izzie," Denny said, rising and walking to the foot of the bed, much nearer to her chair, and sitting at the end. "Let me let you in on a little secret. You can still love me, and love him too. You can. It's not an insult, it's not a betrayal, because honestly, I'm dead, and I appreciate that your love reaches me even in death, but that shouldn't be the end of it for you. You deserve to be in love with someone who can hold you and make you happy for the rest of your life, I want that for you. You can love my memory and be in love with him, Izzie. Really."

At this point, tears had marked two distinct trails down the sides of Izzie's cheeks, and she nodded at Denny's words. He gave her a warm, compassionate look, and his eyes said everything all over again.

"Seriously?" she asked, sniffing loudly. He smiled.

"Seriously."

"I'll always love you, Denny," she said, and he nodded.

"And I'll always love you, Izzie. In life, in death, and further beyond than your mind can comprehend right now. When you die, you'll understand. It's different here. Life and death, physical and metaphysical, they're just two pieces of a hugely complex puzzle, and when your life ends, you'll understand. I couldn't even begin to explain it, but you will. The simplest way I can say it is, that I can feel your love every day, and I love you just as much, and while that in itself is enough to make anyone happy… knowing that you're healing and loving again and moving on down on earth… that would make my universe explode in so many happy colors it would make your head spin."

Izzie nodded, smiling, the tears having stopped. Wet stains still shone on her face, and her eyes were red, but she was smiling nonetheless.

"It's time to go, Izzie," Denny said with a sad smile.

"Okay," she replied simply, nodding.

"I'll see you later, Izzie," Denny said, reaching a hand out to touch her face. His touch felt cool and liquidy, like cold water running over her face just where his fingers had touched her. Fresh tears began to fall and he wiped them away with the pads of his thumbs, holding her face in his hands, just smiling at her. Just like Denny.

-----

It was like being woken up by a crash of cymbals – immediate. She was wide awake instantly, breathing heavily and eyes searching wildly around the room. But there was no difference. Same dark bedroom, same quiet house. No more dream hospital. The only thing different was the tingling sensation on Izzie's wet cheeks, and a feeling like a very heavy, very sad bird had suddenly spread its wings and flown from somewhere deep within her, gone into the inky sky and to a place that was neither physical nor metaphysical. Something you couldn't understand even if you tried.

-----------------------------------

**A/N:** So now I'm curious. Like it? Hate it? Think I need to check myself into a rehab facility? Let me know! Oh, and the song that this chapter is titled for, is really a great song that I seriously suggest everyone listen to if given the chance. It's "The Truth About Heaven" by Armor for Sleep.


	10. Fighter

**A/N:** I'm glad you guys liked the last chapter! I had been getting a lot of comments about how the fic was so canon and that people appreciated that, so I was afraid people would respond badly to Chapter 9, but you didn't so I'm happy. This is Cristina's chapter, her grand re-appearance since we haven't seen her since Chapter 2, and she's basically just the greatest. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** I own absolutely nothing. The ideas and characters of Grey's Anatomy are owned by Shonda Rhimes, who is owned by ABC, who is owned by Walt Disney Co., who basically owns the world and all of the happiness in it. Just so you know. Seriously, go to Google and look up what all companies Walt Disney Co. owns, it's insane. They really do own all the happiness of the world, basically. But now I'm rambling.

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**Chapter 10: Fighter**

The next day, Izzie did three loads of laundry and baked a chocolate cake. That evening Meredith came home – sans George, he was on call – to the smell of clean laundry and chocolate in her home. Izzie, God bless her, was actually asleep, so Meredith didn't bother her, and helped herself to a slice of moist cake in silence. Izzie had been seriously sleep-deprived in the past month, to the point where Meredith would've prescribed her sleeping pills if she thought there was any chance Izzie would accept and take them, so knowing that she was getting some rest was good knowledge.

She dragged her weary body down the hall and into her bedroom, where she smiled when she saw a pile of messily-folded t-shirts at the end of her bed. And her white shirt was still white, a sign that Izzie was separating the colors now. Definitely a good sign. Meredith collapsed on her bed and fell into a deep sleep, not even bothering to change into one of the clean shirts beforehand. Izzie wasn't the only one who needed a good night's sleep.

------

"You need to talk to her," Meredith said to Cristina as they pulled on their scrubs in the locker room.

"Why me?" Cristina asked, taming back her thick mane with a hair tie.

"Because she won't listen to us, and I'm not good at being mean and forceful anyway. You are," Meredith reasoned, slipping her feet into a pair of comfortable and well-worn sneakers. Cristina laughed.

"So you want me to go be mean and forceful, is that what you're saying? Bully her into going back to work?"

"Yes," Meredith said, nodding. Cristina rolled her eyes.

"And what if she goes all postal on me because she's depressed and unpredictable?"

"She's not so depressed anymore, she's doing laundry again. And baking."

"Oh, that explains the cookies Bambi was trying to give me."

"You should eat them, they're good."

"I don't do cookies."

"You're changing the subject," Meredith pointed out as she slung a stethoscope around her neck. "Go over there. Talk to her. Make her come back to work. She needs you to convince her." Cristina sighed, giving Meredith a displeased look.

"Why is it that whenever we play good-cop-bad-cop, I'm always the bad cop?"

"Because I'm too soft and sympathetic to be the bad cop, and you don't do cookies," Meredith reminded her.

"Right." Cristina sighed loudly, looking at Meredith again before rolling her eyes. "Fine, I'll see if I have time later today."

"Thank you," Meredith said, touching her shoulder before taking off in the opposite direction to start rounds.

-------

Izzie was surprised to hear a knock on the door around 4:00 in the afternoon. She knew George would be coming home tonight but not this early, and Meredith was on call. Wondering briefly if it was Alex, Izzie rolled out of bed and crept down the stairs to the front door, gazing through the peep hole with one eye.

It was Cristina. More shocked than if it had been Alex, Izzie opened the door and shot her a bemused look.

"Cristina? What are you doing here?" she asked, but without giving an answer Cristina let herself into the house, walking past Izzie and into the living room. She set her purse down and turned to face Izzie, with a less-than-pleased look on her face.

"I'm here because you're grief-stricken and being abnormal and reclusive and you need to go back to work." Cristina said all of this very fast and very matter-of-factly. Izzie narrowed her eyes.

"Meredith put you up to this, didn't she? Or George?"

"Mere. I got sent to be the bad cop."

"Damnit Meredith," Izzie swore under her breath, entering the living room and sitting down on the edge of the couch. She looked up at Cristina and shrugged.

"You can leave if you want, because you're just wasting your time," she said, and Cristina shook her head.

"I didn't come all the way here just to turn around and go back home. I have to at least pretend to persuade you, to make Meredith happy," she said, taking a seat on the other end of the couch.

"Did George bring you those cookies?" Izzie asked after a minute of silence, and Cristina nodded.

"I don't do cookies," she said simply, and Izzie made a soft 'oh' sound. She hadn't spoken to Cristina much since she quit working – there just weren't many situations in which they were together. They weren't best friends like Cristina and Meredith were, and they didn't have a lot in common aside from being surgeons. Or ex-surgeons. Cristina wasn't a "call to see how you're doing" person so she hadn't gotten any check-up calls from her, so really this was the first time she'd spoken to her in a while.

"How's Burke doing?" Izzie asked after another moment of silence, and Cristina shrugged.

"He's okay. The tremors are still there, but the physical therapist says he's coming along really nicely, and they might go away entirely."

"Oh, well that's good," Izzie said, thankful that someone who still wanted to be a surgeon might be able to be.

"Izzie, you're rank," Cristina finally said, sparing her a look of disgust.

"You can go home if you don't like the way I smell," Izzie said bluntly, and Cristina gave her a slightly disbelieving look before opening her mouth to speak again.

"Oh come on Izzie, I got sent here because Meredith made me, but really, this is stupid."

"Oh, so now it's stupid to have human emotions? Should've expected that from you," Izzie spat, giving Cristina a narrow glare.

"No, it's stupid to lie around in Hello Kitty panties and do nothing but be sad about something you can't change and let yourself turn into that dirty little guy off of Peanuts, that's what's stupid," Cristina retorted, kicking her shoes off and folding her legs beneath her. Izzie looked down at the pink panties she was wearing, which sure enough had a small Hello Kitty stamped right on the crotch, and scowled.

"You can leave, you know, nobody's stopping you," Izzie spat.

"And you can try taking a shower, nobody's stopping you from doing that either. Or going back to work."

"Wrong, the Chief would stop me from doing that. And I don't feel like taking a shower."

"Izzie, you're being ridiculous, not to mention disgusting."

"And you're being rude! I'd appreciate if you'd shut up, or leave."

"I'd appreciate if you'd BATHE!" Cristina shouted, and Izzie was stunned. She hadn't had anyone speak frankly to her, much less shout at her, since Denny's death. It was almost refreshing, in its own way.

"Why do you care?" Izzie asked suspiciously. It wasn't like Cristina to come over here, sit with her, and yell at her about her personal hygiene.

"Because you're being ridiculous and only hurting yourself – and anyone who has to smell you – and believe it or not, Izzie, you're kind of my friend. You know all about that heartfelt crap, isn't that what friends do?" Cristina shot, and Izzie was touched, despite her fierce tone. She considered her kind of a friend. She hadn't known that before.

"Thanks, Cristina. That's nice."

"I don't do nice. Now get your lazy ass up and take a shower before I choke."

Izzie smiled, and did as she was told. She was half-way up the stairs before she stopped and looked down into the living room. Cristina was still there, having turned on the TV and was flipping channels with her legs stretched out the length of the couch.

Twenty minutes later Izzie was a clean, conditioned member of society. She had put on a pair of gym shorts and a tank top and was almost at the bottom of the stairs when Cristina heard her and looked up, and shook her head.

"Oh no, Izzie, you're putting on real clothes," she said, tossing the remote to the other end of the couch and getting up, marching over to the base of the stairs.

"Cristina, you got me to bathe, give me a break," she said, but Cristina gave her a dark look that was enough to make her turn around and trek back up the stairs.

"I don't need a sitter, you know," she said as Cristina followed her into her bedroom, taking a seat on the edge of her bed.

"Right, sure you don't. Put on some jeans at least," Cristina said bossily, crossing her legs.

"I can dress myself!" Izzie said, opening her dresser drawers and pulling out a pair of jeans. "Here, how are these?" she asked, holding them up for approval. Cristina nodded and Izzie stepped out of her shorts, balling them up and throwing them at Cristina before she slipped into the jeans. Cristina shot her a sour look, tossing the discarded shorts into the dirty clothes hamper and watching Izzie fumble with the button. She wasn't used to clothes she had to zip up and button.

"Alright, am I decent now?" Izzie asked, and Cristina shook her head.

"Find a cute top to go with that," she ordered, and Izzie gave her an exasperated look, which Cristina cut off with a sharp, 'don't argue with me' glare.

"Cristina, I'm not even going anywhere!" Izzie said, fingering through the tops hung up in her closet before she pulled out a soft pink off-the-shoulder sweater of sorts. "Here, how's this suit you?" she asked bitterly, and Cristina nodded.

"That's nice," she commented, as Izzie pulled off her top and traded it out for the nicer one. Cristina was glad to observe that she did not indeed have matching Hello Kitty bras to go with the panties. Such an undergarment set might make her violently sick.

"Okay, am I suitable _now_?" Izzie asked, looking more dressed up than she had in over a month. Cristina bit her bottom lip for a moment, then shook her head.

"Put some jewelry on. Earrings, a necklace, whatever. Something."

"Why on earth --?"

"Just do it!" Cristina said loudly, and Izzie made a face before yanking open the drawer of her jewelry box rather forcefully and picking out a pair of small silver hoops, and a necklace bearing a heart-shaped pendent in the center. She put them on slowly, watching her actions in the mirror as she did so. They didn't even feel like hers, it had been so long since she put them on.

"And now?" she asked, turning to face Cristina. Cristina shook her head.

"Make-up," she said, and Izzie groaned loudly.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Knowing better than to argue with Cristina about this, Izzie stomped into the bathroom across the hall and pulled out her make-up bag, applying just enough to hide the tired circles around her eyes, to give her lips a little shine and her cheeks a little glow. She looked admittedly nicer than before. When she re-entered her room, Cristina actually smiled.

"Well there you go!" she said, standing up and walking over to where Izzie stood in the doorway, circling her like a hawk, checking her out from every angle. "You look really nice," she complimented.

"Thanks. All dressed up and nowhere to go," Izzie said, wiggling her bare toes into the carpet.

"Not necessarily true. We could go to Joe's," Cristina suggested, and Izzie scowled. She hadn't been there in so long – it was haunted by her co-workers, people who reeked of the hospital and talked about surgeries until their eyeballs were floating in so much tequila that they could barely remember they were doctors to begin with.

"Will you make me even if I refuse?" Izzie asked, and Cristina nodded.

"Basically," she said, and Izzie managed a chuckle.

"Fine. Let me get my shoes and my purse," she said, and Cristina smiled in a self-satisfied way as she followed her down the stairs. They were at Joe's by six, and took two seats at the bar. Joe approached them and looked pleasantly shocked to see Izzie there.

"Well well, haven't seen you in a while," he commented, wiping a glass clean. She shrugged, and Cristina set to ordering their drinks. They had them in no time, and Izzie let her long legs dangle from the barstool, toes grazing the ground as she sipped her soda – she hadn't had an alcoholic drink since Denny's death, and didn't think taking a depressant would be good for her state of mental well-being at the current time, despite the upward turn she seemed to be taking.

"Feels good being out in society again, doesn't it?" Cristina asked, watching Izzie over the top of her drink as she took a long sip. Izzie nodded, swallowing.

"Yeah. Yeah, it does. Cristina, thanks," she said, and Cristina shrugged as she ordered another drink.

"Whatever, you just needed someone to kick your ass. It's what I do." She smiled, and Izzie laughed.

"Yeah, it is," she agreed, taking another sip of her drink and staring idly into the glass, watching everything beyond it become blurry and distorted through the lens of liquid and carbon bubbles.

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**A/N:** Yeahso basically Cristina is the shit. I love writing her, I love watching her on the show. Actually I just love watching the show period. -grin- Anyway, review!


	11. Vindicated

**A/N:** I'm glad you guys all liked the Cristina chapter! There are only two more chapters left to this fic, this one (chapter 11) and the next one, Chapter 12. I finished Chapter 12 yesterday, and it was really, really bittersweet -- I just want to keep on writing the story forever, it's really a good time for me, but it had to end eventually. So enjoy what you have left of the story, as it is winding down! As for this chapter... DUN DUN DUN! The meeting with the Chief. -gasp- What will happen? Will Izzie be dismissed, or allowed to return to work? Will she even want to return to surgery? Find out now! -grins and shuts up-

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of this stuff, but we've been over this already.

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**Chapter 11: Vindicated**

"It'll be fine," Meredith said reassuringly, looking into Izzie's green-tinged face riddled with anxiety.

"But what if it's not?" Izzie asked doubtfully, chewing on her thumb. George wandered into the kitchen, much as if he had no real idea as to where he was going or why he was going there, and stepped past her to grab an apple from the bowl on the counter.

"What if what's not?" he asked, taking a bite.

"Izzie's meeting with the Chief is this morning," Meredith explained, saving Izzie from having to open her mouth more than necessary. She looked like she might vomit if she did.

"Oh," he said, understanding the gravity of the situation. She would meet with Chief Webber about her activities regarding the LVAD wire and the falsified test results, the legality of the situation, and where she could go with her career at Seattle Grace, or any other hospital, from there. Her place in the program, even her licensure was at stake.

It had taken a lot of convincing to get Izzie to the point where she'd arrange to have this meeting with Chief. Two weeks had passed since showing her face at Joe's, and Cristina had actually taken to harassing her about when she'd be coming back to work. Finally she allowed Cristina to bend her to her will and made the arrangements to have a hearing with the Chief, Burke, Dr. Bailey and the hospital lawyer about her actions. There all the grave decisions would be made about her future.

Up until the date of the hearing, though, Izzie had been in steadily-improving spirits – in the past two weeks everything in the house had been washed, dried, folded, vacuumed, mopped, scrubbed, wiped, and otherwise made clean. It looked like several Merry Maids on an ephedrine high had been let loose in the house, but it was just Izzie keeping herself occupied. In addition, she had added several more late-night letters to her secret stash in the bottom of her desk drawer, and baked enough cakes and cookies to feed all the starving displaced refugees of Darfur. She needed to go back to work, whether she liked to admit it or not.

"Ready?" Meredith asked the kitchen in general, and Izzie nodded slowly, paling.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Meredith said, taking Izzie by the elbow and leading her out of the house, as her feet seemed to have stopped working properly.

The car ride to the hospital was quiet and tense, nearly as somber as the ride to the cemetery for Denny's funeral. Izzie felt as if they were headed to another funeral – her own. Or at least, the funeral of her career. It wasn't as if she'd even cared about being able to practice medicine again until just recently – before, she hadn't ever wanted to return to surgery, or Seattle Grace Hospital, again. She still wasn't sure if she wanted to go back to surgery, but being a doctor… she had worked too hard for that M.D. tacked onto the end of her name to just up and walk away from it. She hadn't spent $200,000 on medical school just to say she tried and walked away because things got hard. She had to get up and go back, to not fail. No failure allowed.

Izzie sat quietly on a bench in the locker room, staring sickly into the wall as her friends changed into their scrubs around her. Meredith took a seat on one side of her, waving a hand in front of her face.

"Izzie, you with us?" she asked, and Izzie just swallowed forcefully in response. Cristina took a seat on the other side of her, taming her hair back into a ponytail and giving Izzie one of her very rare concerned looks.

"You'll be fine," George said reassuringly, sitting on the bench opposite of her, half of a bagel in his mouth. She nodded, face white, chewing on her bottom lip.

"George is right, it's going to be just fine," Meredith said, putting a hand on Izzie's shoulder. Cristina nodded from her other side.

"Why are my interns not taking care of rounds already?" a familiar voice inquired loudly and angrily from the other side of the lockers. Dr. Bailey walked around the corner, a clipboard in hand, looking aggravated. "Get going, now. No, don't give me lip, I don't care if today's the freakin' Apocalypse, get to work! She will be _fine_, George, now GO!" Miranda Bailey shouted, sending her interns scurrying out the door, each of them giving Izzie a warm, 'it'll be okay' smile before exiting. Bailey looked down at the blonde intern, who appeared very much smaller and weaker than usual, and spared her a soft look before addressing her in the same tone she took up with everyone. Trust Bailey to give Izzie all the normalcy she needed, to treat her like any other person and not a breakable porcelain doll.

"You ready for your meeting with the Chief?" she asked, and Izzie just barely nodded.

"Good. Let's go." Together the two women left the locker room, Bailey in her typical scrubs and Izzie wearing a smart, professional-looking outfit. A confident, self-assured, ready to take on the world outfit that in no way reflected Izzie's current feelings. Because honestly, she was not confident, she was not self-assured, and she was not ready to take on a soda machine, much less the world.

"Izzie," a voice called out, and Izzie turned to see Alex jogging down the hall towards her, a worried look on his face. "I heard your meeting with the Chief was today?" he implored, and she nodded.

"Now, actually, that's where I'm going," she said, and he took in a sharp breath.

"Wow, that's heavy. Good luck on that, let me know how it goes," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked down at the ground, then finally met his gaze.

"I will. Thanks, Alex," she said, and matching smiles flickered across both of their faces. An impatient 'ahem' from behind Izzie yanked her back into reality, and she gave Alex an almost apologetic look.

"I have to go now. See you," she said, turning and following Bailey down the hall once more, leaving Alex to himself. He watched her go, until she disappeared around a corner, and finally let go of that breath, sighing heavily. He wished at that point more than anything that it could be him facing an inquiry, putting his degree on the line, instead of Izzie. If only.

---

The room was immensely terrifying the moment the door clicked shut quietly behind Izzie. In the Chief's office stood a woman who Izzie recognized as the hospital's attorney, Burke in his dark blue scrubs looking serene and pensive, Bailey, and the Chief, who was standing behind his desk, leaning against it on the heels of his hands. And Izzie, of course. All eyes were on her as the door shut – the harsh, scrutinizing glare of the lawyer, the calm, reassuring gaze of Dr. Burke, and the Chief's judgmental glance in her direction before he turned to Burke.

"Shall we begin?" he asked, as if he needed permission. Burke shrugged mildly.

"Whenever you are ready, sir," he said, and Chief Webber sighed.

"Alright then, let's get this over with." And so they began. The hospital lawyer read off all of the unlawful acts which Izzie was accused of, and she was asked how she pled to them. Guilty, on all counts. Cutting the LVAD wire, falsifying lab tests in order to obtain an organ from UNOS when the patient was not truly on the top of the list, acting against the Hippocratic Oath on multiple occasions, et cetera. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

"Dr. Stevens, you are unbelievably lucky that there is nobody to sue on behalf of Denny Duquette in this case, because you could surely lose not only your medical license but much, much more. UNOS knows nothing about the entire incident, and neither do they need to. All that UNOS knows is that Mr. Duquette's condition decreased dramatically due to his heart bottoming out, and that is all they need to know." The room was so tense the air felt electrically charged, all eyes on Izzie, and Izzie's eyes locked on the Chief. "I believe now it is time for me to turn to our legal advisor and see what her opinions on the matter are."

"My suggestion," the lawyer finally said after a moment of tense silence and note-scribbling, "would be that Dr. Stevens have her medical license revoked, and no longer be eligible to practice medicine, at the very least." She spoke the words in a cold, biting tone, without warmth or sympathy in any form.

"Don't you find that a little harsh?" Bailey piped in, but the lawyer shook her head curtly.

"This woman has shown no restraint, no self-control or understanding of actions and consequences, and no respect for the Hippocratic Oath, UNOS, or the surgical internship program in which she is a part of."

"I believe she understands the repercussions of her actions perfectly clearly," Bailey argued in her defense, and never had Izzie felt so fondly towards the Nazi.

"Do you?"

"Indeed. She was so stricken with grief that she was unable to return to the hospital for the past two months. This day is the first day she has stepped foot into the building since that night." This statement hit a very personal note with Izzie, and her thoughts raced back to the last time she had indeed been in the hospital – the death of Denny. The thoughts must've translated into a look on her face, because everyone watched her curiously for a moment before she snapped out of reverie, looking up to the Chief.

"Sir, I do very thoroughly understand the repercussions of my actions. I understand what I did was wrong, and I understand that it was disrespectful, underhanded, illegal, and possibly could have been the cause of Denny Duquette's death. I understand this," she reassured, more to the lawyer than to the Chief, who she suspected knew this already. He nodded gravely.

"I believe you do."

"Regardless of what she does or doesn't understand, punishment in the severest form is necessary in these sorts of cases!" the attorney argued. The Chief looked up at her.

"Well, she has served a two-month suspension from the hospital grounds already, albeit by choice rather than order. Perhaps another month of suspension is in order before Dr. Stevens be allowed to return to practicing medicine?" the Chief suggested, but the woman looked outraged by the mere thought.

"Perhaps affairs of legality do not matter to you, Dr. Webber, but this irresponsible woman is a huge liability!" she shouted, and for the first time during the whole meeting Dr. Burke cleared his throat to speak.

"Correct me if I am wrong, ma'am, but isn't every doctor in the hospital a liability?" he asked calmly. Her face reddened.

"Yes, they are, but one with a history of blatantly defying the rules of the hospital and the law is regarded as an extreme liability."

"Perhaps so many months of suspension, not to mention unbearable grief, would be enough to instill in her a greater sense of regard for the rules?" Burke suggested.

"Well put, Dr. Burke," the Chief said, and Izzie noticed that he was smiling. "Dr. Stevens, you will be sentenced to a further month of suspension, as well as intense supervision by the on-call attendings for a period of time upon your return to the hospital, if you so choose to return," he said, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Thank you, sir," she squeaked, and the lawyer looked positively scandalized.

"You can't do this!" she shouted, but the Chief simply nodded his head.

"I am the Chief of Surgery, this is my call to make, and I must ask you not yell at me or my surgical attending, surgical resident, or surgical intern." Surgical intern. It was a title Izzie had not identified herself with in a while, and it made her feel both excited and sick at the same time. Would she be up to returning to work in surgery? Could she handle it again? She was suddenly reminded of her prior conviction to not fail, to get back on the horse after being knocked off, and she nodded to herself. She could do it. It would be hard and trying but she'd obviously been through worse, and she could do it.

"Dr. Izzie Stevens, your record has been officially expunged. In a month's time I expect to see you back on the surgical floor, catching up for the months of internship you've missed out on," the Chief said firmly, and Izzie nodded.

"Yes, sir," she said, trying her best not to break out into a huge smile. She did anyway.

"Alright, now go. You're still suspended as of now," he said, and she could've sworn he winked at her as she exited the office, Bailey on her tail.

"You heard the man, leave!" she said, and despite her Nazi-ish tone Izzie knew she was happy for her.

"Right, Dr. Bailey, I'm on it," she said, grinning at her. Dr. Bailey shook her head, smiling, then turned and headed in the other direction down the hall, distinctly muttering something about 'incessant suck-ups, nothing changes'.

"Izzie!" a voice shouted down the hall, and Izzie turned to see Alex running towards her for a second time that morning.

"How'd it go?" he panted, breathing heavily. He had sprinted just to catch her before she left.

"One month suspension, and then I'll be back," she said, beaming.

"Alright!" Alex shouted, reaching out and hugging Izzie, picking her up as he did so and swinging her into a small circle before setting her down. He backed up a few paces awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Sorry, I eh…"

"It's okay!" she said, smiling if possible even more than she had been previously. "Thanks, I'm really happy too," she said, all of the old light shining in her eyes again. When she smiled, her eyes smiled too. He grinned lop-sidedly, rubbing the back of his head and chuckling.

"Stevens, you heard me! Get out of here!" a voice shouted, and Izzie looked up to see Dr. Bailey glaring down at her over the railing of the second floor. Izzie laughed, nodding.

"Right, I have to go. Alex, I'll see you," she said, and turned to walk out the door. After a few paces, however, she turned around and threw herself back into his arms, giving him a brief but affectionate hug before drawing back, flushing slightly.

"See you," she said, adjusting her purse on her shoulder and walking out of the hospital. Again he stood on his own, looking slightly abashed but entirely pleased. For the first time in a month, he felt that giving Izzie her space to grieve and heal really _was_ the best thing he could've done.

"Karev! What are you doing?" the Nazi shouted down into the atrium of the hospital where he was still standing, reflecting on his thoughts, and he jumped to attention.

"Going! Right now!" he shouted back, turning and speeding down the hall, a wide grin still plastered on his face.

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**A/N:** Yeah yeah, I figured you'd all be happy to see the Alex and Izzie stuff! Most of you, anyway. -pacifies the Dizzies out there with chocolate chip cookies- Forgive me, guys? Hehe. Anyway, please review, and thanks in advance! Oh, and please, if you have ANY last questions about things you don't understand yet, or you wonder why something happened the way it did, ask me, because I will address all of those questions in a long post-final-chapter Author's Note when I put up the last chapter. Cheers!


	12. Love

**A/N:** This is it, the final chapter. I just wanted to say that I'm really grateful to you guys who reviewed the chapters, especially the readers who kept coming back and reviewing chapter after chapter, giving me some con-crit when necessary, but mostly just bolstering my confidence and making me feel good about myself. -grin- So without further adieu, the final chapter!

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**Chapter 12: Love**

"Izzie, the reservations are at six, we don't want to be late!" George called up the stairs.

"I know, I can read a clock!" she shouted back, though not in a displeased tone. You could hear the smile on her voice, and sure enough, she was grinning at her reflection in the mirror. Elegant but simple, every girl's little black dress she keeps in the closet for going out. Nice but understated, dressy but fun. The cute, flirty, yet sophisticated little black dress. Heels and a clutch pulled it all together, and she couldn't remember the last time she looked so nice. Probably Denny's funeral.

It was getting to where she could think about it without her stomach clenching into several tight knots – only a slight twinge remained. Her final month of suspension from the hospital had passed with relative speed, and tomorrow she returned to work. Her stomach flip-flopped at the thought; part of her was excited to be getting back to Seattle Grace, and the other part was incredibly nervous about caring for sick and dying people again. She didn't know how much her heart could handle, what she'd be able to deal with upon returning.

But now wasn't the time to worry; all of the interns had arranged their schedules to have tonight off, and they were going out to celebrate Izzie's return to the hospital. Alex was waiting downstairs, Callie had come with George from the hospital to Meredith's house to get ready, Cristina and Burke were meeting them at the restaurant – a classy Japanese restaurant downtown – and while Meredith had invited Derek to come along, he'd gracefully declined while sending his regards and congratulations to Izzie with Meredith. His divorce from Addison was final now, and had been since shortly after the prom 'incident', but he felt that it would be inappropriate yet for him to start coming to functions where her friends would be. After all, her friends were not quite his friends yet – some of, or more appropriately put, _all of_, the interns still had mixed feelings about McDreamy and his track record with Meredith, and he wasn't naïve to this.

"Hey, it's five-thirty, are you done looking at yourself yet?" Meredith asked, poking her head into Izzie's bedroom. She sighed softly, a look of awe crossing her features.

"Wow, Izzie, you look great," she said, and it was true – she really did look great, the best she had looked in a long time, and it wasn't just the dress. She shone, inside and out. A smile lit up her expression, her eyes danced with laughter, and she was very much Izzie again. It really was a beautiful thing.

"Thanks, Mere," she said, grinning. "So, are we ready?"

"We've been waiting on _you_ for the past fifteen minutes!" Meredith laughed, holding the door open for Izzie as they both left her bedroom, bouncing down the stairs and joking like giddy schoolgirls. Life hadn't been this close to normal in a long, long time, for any of them. It was weird, really, almost surreal – how often did this happen, and for how long was it going to last?

Everyone else was gathered in the atrium by the front door, waiting for Izzie's grand descent from on high. Three pairs of eyes gave Izzie the same awed, joyful look Meredith had upon seeing her. The change in her demeanor showed through the way she looked, the way she carried herself, and it showed greatly. Alex looked almost beside himself.

"We're ready!" Izzie announced, and George rolled his eyes.

"Finally," he said, and Izzie laughed and punched him in the arm as she approached.

"Ow! No physical abuse!"

"Suck it up, Bambi, she's just a girl," Alex laughed, Izzie's eyes flashing at him.

"Just a girl, huh?" she said, and Alex quickly shook his head.

"Er, that came out different than I meant it. You're a woman, a woman with very painful attacks. I remember," he said, reverie playing across his face as he touched his hand to his cheek, where he had been on more than one occasion slapped.

"Besides," he added, "Meredith's the one with the ineffectual fists around here." She glared at him and laughed.

"You _had_ to bring that up, didn't you? Just couldn't leave it?"

"Nope, of course not. C'mon, you know me," Alex said, grinning lop-sidedly as Izzie and Callie laughed. In the past months since Callie's aid to Meredith during the prom fiasco, the female interns had opened up a space for Callie in their 'circle', letting her in as more of a friend and less of "George's girlfriend".

"So how are we doing this?" George asked, looking at the cars in the driveway.

"George, you and Callie will take my car with me… and I'm sure Alex can give Izzie a ride there, right?" Meredith suggested with only a hint of a smile, raising her eyebrows.

"I think I could handle that," Alex said, shrugging off-handedly, also concealing a grin. Izzie's gave Meredith a questioning look, but she pointedly refused to meet Izzie's gaze.

"Let's get on it, I'm hungry!" George chimed in, breaking the silence, and everyone either laughed or rolled their eyes, or both. Izzie let herself into the passenger-side door of Alex's car before he had the chance to help her, and was looking around the interior when he got in.

"I didn't know you even had a car," she said, digging through the things in his glove compartment nosily.

"Yeah, I just don't drive it much," he replied, watching her sift through his things with an amused expression on his face. "Don't think much of personal privacy, do you?" he asked with a chuckle.

"What, you got something to hide?" Izzie asked, raising her eyebrows and smiling as she shoved his proof of insurance and registration back in among the other things, pushing the compartment shut with her knee. He shook his head, and they shared a smile before she turned to the window, looking out as they drove. They rode in silence for a few minutes before either of them spoke again.

"You excited about going back to work tomorrow?" he asked, and she shrugged.

"Yeah, kind of. I'm kind of nervous too," she admitted.

"Don't be, you'll do fine," he said encouragingly, a rare tone for Alex to take, and Izzie turned to look at him, leaning against the window.

"You think so?" she asked.

"Yeah, definitely," he responded immediately, and then there was a pregnant pause before he spoke again. "I think you're going to find that the way you deal with patients has changed since last time you were working, though." Izzie nodded, not saying anything. She was most worried about that, dealing with the patients. Would she turn into Cristina, socially-retarded when it came to interpersonal relations, or would she just cry at everyone's bedside until they either got better or died?

"I don't want to turn into Cristina in the way I deal with people," she said, and Alex laughed aloud at the comment, shaking his head.

"Don't worry, it takes years of twisted psychological training to turn into Cristina," he assured, and Izzie burst out laughing.

"You're so mean!" she said, and he shrugged with a smile.

"Hey, you know me, I'm just honest," he said, and she nodded quietly, a smile still hovering. He was honest.

"Alex, I have a question," Izzie suddenly said after another moment of silent driving. He raised his eyebrows, still watching the road.

"I know this might be kind of weird, and kind of bad timing, and if you don't want to then just say so and it won't bother me," she prefaced, and he nodded.

"Okay, what do you want?"

"Uhm… do you think we could go by the cemetery?" she asked quietly. There was a pause so tense and silent that even the road noise from driving ten over the speed limit to get to the restaurant on time disappeared. Then he nodded.

"Yeah, sure, if that's what you want," he said cautiously, switching lanes so that he would be able to turn in when they came up to it. They didn't speak as they turned onto a quieter street, traveling it for a few minutes until they saw the roadside cast-iron sign, casting sunset shadows of the cemetery name backwards onto the grass. Only the clicking of the blinker made any noise as they turned onto the gravel path, cruising slowly until they came into the parking lot. They were the only visitors there. It was Izzie, Alex, and the dead people, and that was it.

"It's strange here," Alex muttered, shaking his head. Izzie shrugged; it didn't really bother her. It was very quiet, the only sounds their footsteps through the grass, careful not to tread on anyone's grave, and cars driving past them in the distance. Shadows stretched across the grounds, thrown by the setting sun, and the face of each solitary tombstone was slowly darkened as dusk approached.

It struck Izzie that each slab of stone represented a loved-one lost, an individual person who had left it all behind. Beneath each of the silent markers was a parent, a child, a spouse. Somebody's somebody. A lover, a best friend, an enemy. A rival, a boss, a teammate. A person who wrote thank-you cards and paid bills and went to school and drug the trash out every Thursday morning. And some of them never even got that far. Some of them were small bodies in small caskets, wearing small suits and small dresses, never to see their graduation or their first love. Dreams buried beneath the grass, with only a commemorative slab of marble to recognize what once was. It was poignant and only slightly distressing, less so due to the knowledge that she could do nothing about it.

They did not speak, only wandered through the springy grass, eyes to the ground, watching for graves they did not wish to tread upon. Alex's hands were shoved into his coat pockets and he followed Izzie as she lead the way, looking a little windswept in this large expanse of memories in her dress and heels, giving each grave they passed her thoughts as they wandered deeper into the plot of land, seemingly aimlessly. Their wandering was not aimless, though, and they both knew that.

_There it is,_ the voice said, and Izzie was surprised to hear it speaking to her. She hadn't heard from the Voice in a long time.

"There it is," she echoed aloud, and Alex looked up to see what she was staring at, feet rooted to the spot. A broad white marble marker protruded from the soft, rolling grass, the name 'Denny Duquette' engraved deeply into it. It was followed by his years of birth and death, and that was it. No epitaph, because Izzie had been entirely too distressed to think up one, and any family that he might've had did not step forward.

_You're not alone,_ the voice said abruptly. Izzie bit her bottom lip, tearing her gaze from the white stone ahead to glance behind her, to where Alex was staring at his feet, rocking on his heels and looking uncomfortable.

"No, I'm not," she said, and despite herself she just faintly smiled. It wasn't just Alex standing with her that made her realize how true that statement was, although literally he was the reason that, at that moment, she was not alone. It was Meredith, who let her cry and held her until she could not cry anymore. It was George, who bought her pizza and pushed her on the swings, who against all rational expectation was emotionally vast enough to understand where she was coming from. It was Cristina, whose friendship was surprising but exceptionally helpful. It was Callie, whose book Izzie was just in the beginning chapters of, so to speak. It was Bailey, supporting her; it was the Chief giving her a second chance.

And it was Alex, who fifteen minutes late to dinner and surely ravenous, was standing quietly in a cemetery, because Izzie had asked it of him. Alex, who she just realized had given her everything she had asked for during this hard time, and never asked anything of her. Alex, who waited and waited, and was still waiting, because he had faith that if he waited long enough, the door would finally open.

It was then she realized – by intuition, perhaps, just one of those feelings – that she wouldn't be hearing from the Voice anymore. That was the end of that. Doors open, doors shut.

Izzie approached the grave, wrapping her hands around her elbows as she shivered – partially from the cold, and partially from something else that she could control perhaps just as much as the dropping temperature. She didn't speak, maintaining the silence and just staring at the grave. She didn't know why she felt the need to visit, but she had, and it felt right to be there at that moment. Bringing what left she carried and laying it to rest, or better yet, releasing it. Letting it fly away, into the sky and beyond. Weightless.

Alex came up behind her after a few minutes, and she could hear the rustling sound of his coat coming off. He draped it around her shoulders, shielding her against the cool that evening was fast bringing. She turned and looked over the collar of the coat at him, truly connecting with his gaze for what felt like the first time in a longwhile --in her life, maybe.

"I'm not alone," she said, and he nodded, putting an arm around her. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and they both looked upon Denny's grave, each engrossed in thought; individual thoughts, or perhaps one united thought, neither could know.

"No, you're not," he agreed, putting his chin gently on top of her head and giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

No, she was not alone. Not by a long shot.

_The End_

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**A/N:** -sob- I'm really sad that it's done. It's bittersweet for me -- I want it to go on forever, to just keep writing it, exploring the depth of the characters and making new advances. But it has to end somewhere, and from the very first chapter I wrote, I envisioned this as the ending place. Coming back full circle, to where it began. So this is it; the buck stops here.

I got some questions about the Voice that Izzie kept talking to, who it was or why she was hearing it. No, the voice is not Denny, or God, or anyone else. The Voice is in a way Izzie -- it's her rationally thinking part of her brain, the subconscious part of her that sees the truth above all things, kind of like her conscience. It helps her realize the things that may very well be painful to realize, to face the things she's been avoiding.

You see more of the Voice when she's being avoidant and not talking to anyone, because she has left herself with only herself for company, keeping all of her thoughts and emotions bottled up and sharing them only with the Voice, herself. It's not healthy to keep painful emotions like that bottled up, hence why she starts hearing this Voice and talking to herself when she's doing this self-destructive behavior. The more she opens up and lets other people into her heart to help her, the less she hears the Voice, because she doesn't need to rely on only herself to get through this -- she has the voices of others to listen to, so she doesn't need that Voice anymore. I had hoped you'd picked up on that on your own, but I don't think everyone did, so I thought I'd explain it now that it's all over.

I also had some requests to write a sequel fic to this one, and I don't know whether or not I will do that. I kind of like the idea ofclosing the "book" on this one, leaving it be, and picking up a new fic to work on. Probably more Izzie fics, because I enjoy writing her, and not a lot of people do. But there is always the possibility, so who knows. Never say never, right?

Thank you all for reading my fanfic and giving me reviews, it means so much to me. Happy days to all of you!

With Love,

K. Elisabeth


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